“Sorry I haven’t a car!” said Croyden—then he laughed. “The truth is, Colin, they’re not popular down here. The old families won’t have them—they’re innovations—the saddle horse and the family carriage are still to the fore with them. Only the butcher, and the baker and the candlestick maker have motors. There’s one, now—he’s the candlestick maker, I think. This town is nothing if not conservative. It reminds me of the one down South, where they wouldn’t have electric cars. Finally all the street car horses died. Then rather 92 than commit the awful sin of letting new horses come into the city, they accepted the trolley. The fashion suits my pocketbook, however, so I’ve no kick coming.”
“What do you want with a car here, anyway?” Macloud asked. “It looks as if you could walk from one end of the town to the other in fifteen minutes.”
“You can, easily.”
“And the baker et cetera have theirs only for show, I suppose?”
“Yes, that’s about it—the roads, hereabout, are sandy and poor.”
“Then, I’m with your old families. They may be conservative, at times a trifle too much so, but, in the main, their judgment’s pretty reliable, according to conditions. What sort of place did you find—I mean the house?”
“Very fair!”
“And the society?”
“Much better than Northumberland.”
“Hum—I see—the aristocracy of birth, not dollars.”