Five-dollar bills were in the air, fluttering before the eyes of the garage-owner like leaves in Vallambrosa. He clutched them avidly.
"And hurry up," added his impatient patron. "Let's see you back here in five minutes."
"Who'll look after the garage? Not that any one's likely to stop," the proprietor gloomily admitted.
"I'll look after it. Come, get a move on!"
"Oh, all right! But I can't be back in no five minutes, nor in thirty minutes, neither. I gotta go over to Nick Swanson's. He's about your size."
"All right, all right! Go to it."
The impatient youth was fairly shooing him out of his own garage, but with the sweet memory of those five-dollar bills to sustain him, Burke was patient, even good-humored. One thing he could say about them college lads: they was usually ready to pay well for their nonsense. With a forgiving grin he hurried off.
Left alone, Laurie removed his coat and cap, searched the garage successfully for grease, oil, waste, and shoe-blacking, and then, establishing himself in front of a broken mirror in Burke's alleged office, removed his collar and effected a startling transformation in the appearance of his head, face, hands, and shirt.
Beginning in his college days, and continuing throughout his more recent theatrical experiences, the art of make-up had increasingly interested him. The people in his plays owed something to his developing skill, and even one of the leading ladies had humbly taken suggestions from him. But never in any stage dressing-room had young Mr. Devon secured a more extraordinary change than the one he produced now, with the simple aids at hand.
When Burke returned he found his garage in charge of an unwashed, unkempt, unprepossessing young ruffian whom he stared at for a full minute before he accepted him as the man he had left there. The ragged trousers, the spotted "reefer" buttoned high around the neck, the dirty cap pulled over the eyes, and the wholly disreputable broken shoes Burke had brought with him completed the transformation of an immaculate young gentleman into a blear-eyed follower of the open road.