"O, just around the corner. She loves motoring, too, and we poor people down here can't have automobiles of our own."
It was but a minute's trip to Cousin Mary's, and matters were facilitated by discovering the young lady in question standing in her doorway, hatted and gloved, with a camera in her hand. She was more than plump, she was decidedly fat and had red hair. The Codfish decided he wasn't for Cousin Mary. Introductions were quickly made and the call explained. Cousin Mary was willing to ride anywhere so long as it was in a motor.
"Now where shall we go?" inquired the Codfish. "You tell us. This will be a personally conducted tour, you know."
"O, it would be just too lovely to drive to Virginia Beach," gushed Miss Smith.
Chalmers, who knew something of the geography of the territory, winced and tried to catch his companion's eye, but that individual failed to see the warning glance, and ordered—"Drive to Virginia Beach, James."
"All right, sah," and the machine shot off for the Beach. Chalmers very generously took the seat alongside the driver, leaving the Codfish with the girls in the tonneau, which was a disposition highly satisfactory to the latter. But he took care to put Cousin Mary on the far side of the seat.
As mile after mile was spun off, and still the destination was not reached, the Codfish began to wonder what the length of the drive might be, but his pride forbade him to ask. On and on went the car at an easy pace. They had been out nearly two hours from the hotel, and the Codfish began to make mental calculations. "Two hours, that makes eight dollars," he calculated, "another hour and a half back, that makes fourteen. That makes some little bill. I can readily see I'm busted already!" His conversation began to halt, but the lovely Miss Smith was concerned only in the beauties of the landscape which she pointed out to her companion on the seat, who was not so deeply interested as he might have been had things been different.
At last the car drew up at the Beach. "How far do you call it down here, James?" inquired the Codfish, nonchalantly. He was still calculating.
"I reckon about twenty-five miles," said the driver. "Kaint make much time on these here roads."
"Yes, I noticed that," returned the Codfish dryly.