“I opine one o’ them things is mighty handy to have around. I allus look at the pictures of ’em in the advertising pages of the magazines them drummers leave up to the ho-tel. If the Inn makes me enough out o’ the boarders this summer, I kalkerlate to have me one.”
“What for, Mel?” drawled Lem Pinney of the hotel-keeper. “You ain’t got no more use for an ortermobile than a cat has for two tails, I vow!”
“Save payin’ Walky, here, for carting stuff up to the ho-tel,” grinned Parraday. “And me and the old woman can ride to church in it on Sundays.”
“Go to church in it!” scoffed Walky. “If old Elder Concannon ever seen one o’ them things stop in front of the Union Church, he’d throw a conniption right there, in his best suit. He calls ’em ‘devil wagons,’ and says they was prophesied against in the Book of Daniel.”
Just then Marty reappeared, coming down the long dock. He was staggering under the weight of a five-gallon gasoline can. Beside him walked the tall, well-set-up young man whom Janice had seen with her cousin before.
“Oh, dear me!” thought she, with a little flutter. “That must be the civil engineer, Frank Bowman. Marty is bringing him right here! Perhaps he knows how to run an automobile.”
CHAPTER IV
A VERY CIVIL ENGINEER
When her cousin and the young man came near enough, Janice saw that Mr. Bowman was a good-looking person in countenance as well as in figure. He had very blue eyes and very pink cheeks, without being at all effeminate in appearance. His light hair he wore pompadour and brushed up straight over his forehead.
He wore his clothes differently, too, from anybody Janice had seen about Polktown. Even Nelson Haley, the school teacher, did not boast garments of such cut and quality—nor Mr. Middler, the minister.
Marty banged down the gasoline can with a satisfied air and said, in his off-hand way: