“What is it?” I asked.
“Come into some cheap lunch-place, and I’ll blow myself off to a meal and give you the particulars.”
So it came to pass that we were soon seated in a restaurant which, if cheap, is clean—a combination rarer than need be.
“You’ve probably noticed that the more automobiles there are in use, the more breakdowns there are.”
I could but admit that it was so.
“Well, what is more useless than a broken-down motor-wagon?”
I would have suggested “Two,” but Bindley hates warmed-up jokes, so I refrained and told him that I gave it up.
“It isn’t a conundrum,” said he, irritably. “Nothing in the world is more useless than a broken-down motor. There are some vehicles of a box-like pattern that can be used as hen-houses when they have outlived their initial usefulness, but who wants a hen-house on Fifth Avenue, corner of Twenty-fifth Street, or any other place where a motor vehicle gives out? The more I thought this over, the more I felt that something was needed to make a disabled automobile of some use, and I saw that the man who would supply that something could make money hand over fist. So I devoted a great deal of time to the subject, and at last I hit it. Horses.”
“Horses what?” said I.
