“What can you get out of her?”

“She’s a racer.”

“She is?”

“You bet she is. Seventy-five miles an hour.”

“Gee, it’s good to hear you lie so cheerfully, dad.”

“If I’d had any idea you were going to believe me, I’d have claimed a hundred,” said old Oliver, grinning. “See many changes in the town, sonny?”

“I thought Mr. Sage was looking a little older.”

“Well, he is a little older. We all are, for that matter. I guess you’ll find Jane has changed somewhat too. She’s twenty-one. They say she’s an uncommonly pretty girl.”

“They say? Don’t you see anything of her yourself?”

“See her nearly every day. I don’t take much notice of girls these days, blast the luck. She comes in every once in a while to read the letters she gets from you. Seems as though I get a good deal more news out of the letters you write to her than the ones I get from you. You never wrote anything to me about the girl you was thinking of marrying out there in Montana, or the one in China either.”