"I suppose so," said Bertha meekly. "I have been thinking," she said—"I have been wondering whether—don't you think we might—just while business is so dull, you know—have a car of our own?"
"Have a car of our own!" screamed Max, dropping knife and fork this time. "What do we want of a car?"
"We don't want it," said Bertha, "of course, unless other people want it." But then she went on to explain that, no matter how hard were the times, she observed that the street-cars were always full. People had to stand in them at night coming out from the theatre, although that did not seem right or fair. Bertha had measured the paint-shop, and had found that there was room enough in it not only for a car, but for two horses. The old loft of its early days, when it served for a stable, was left as it was made, big enough for a ton or two of hay. It had occurred to Bertha that, as Max had nothing else to do, he might buy two horses and a street-car, and earn a penny or two for Elaine's milk and oatmeal by running an opposition to the Cosmopolitan Company.
Max loved Bertha, and he greatly respected her judgment. But he was human, and therefore he pooh-poohed her plan as absurd—really because it was hers. All the same, after supper he went out and looked at the paint-shop; and the next morning he climbed into the loft and measured it. Poor Max, he had little enough else to do. He sawed and split all the wood. He made the fire. He would fain have cooked the dinner and set the table, but Bertha would not let him. He had nothing else to do. Not a piano-forte hammer was there to cover between the Penobscot and the Pacific, and the panic seemed more frightened and more frightful than ever. So Max did not waste any valuable time, though he did spend an hour in the old hay-loft.
And at dinner it was he who took up the subject.
"Who did you suppose would drive the horse-car, Bertha?"
"Why, I had thought you would. I knew you were on their list for a driver's place at the Cosmopolitan office. And I thought, if you had your own car, you could be your own driver."
"And who was to be conductor?"
Then Bertha shut the window, for fear the little birds should hear. And she said that it had made so much fun at Christmas when she dressed up in Floyd's ulster, and that even Max's father had not known her, that she had been thinking that if they only made evening trips, when it was dark, if Max always drove she should not be afraid to be conductor herself.
Oh, how Max screamed! He laughed, and he laughed, as if he had never laughed before. Then he stopped for a minute for breath, and then he laughed again. At first Bertha laughed, and then she was frightened, and then she was provoked.