The young lady smiled at this. “Victor,” she said, “how idiotic you are!”
I agreed with her. Idiot was one of the terms, the mildest, which I should have applied to that young man. I wanted very much to remove him from that car by what Lute would call the scruff of the neck. But most of all, just then, I wanted to be alone, to see the last of the auto and its occupants.
“First turn to the right, second to the left,” I said, sullenly.
“Thank you, Reuben,” vouchsafed the young man. “Here's hoping that your vegetables are fresher than your jokes. Go ahead, Oscar.”
The chauffeur threw in the clutch and the car buzzed up the road, turning the corner at full speed. There was a loose board projecting from the bridge just under my feet. As a member—though an inactive one—of the Village Improvement Society I should have trodden it back into place. I didn't; I kicked it into the brook.
Then I walked on. But the remainder of my march was a silent one, without music. I did not whistle.
CHAPTER II
The post-office was at Eldredge's store, and Eldredge's store, situated at the corners, where the Main Road and the Depot Road—which is also the direct road to South Denboro—join, was the mercantile and social center of Denboro. Simeon Eldredge kept the store, and Simeon was also postmaster, as well as the town constable, undertaker, and auctioneer. If you wanted a spool of thread, a coffin, or the latest bit of gossip, you applied at Eldredge's. The gossip you could be morally certain of getting at once; the thread or the coffin you might have to wait for.
I scarcely know why I went to Eldredge's that morning. I did not expect mail, and I did not require Simeon's services in any one of his professional capacities. Possibly Lute's suggestion had some sort of psychic effect and I stopped at the post-office involuntarily. At any rate, I woke from the trance in which the encounter with the automobile had left me to find myself walking in at the door.