Or this other gem from the two men:
“Ella has nice shoes on today.”
“That isn’t all Ella has on, is it?”
“Well, not quite. She has a pretty smile.”
I gathered from the many things thus said, and the way the girls were parading up and down in all directions in their very pronounced costumes, that if sex were not freely indulged in here, the beholding of it with the eyes and the formulation of it in thought and appearance were great factors in the daily life and charm of the place. There are ways and ways for the natural tendency of the world to show itself. The flaunting of desire, in its various aspects, is an old process. It was so being flaunted here.
CHAPTER XXVII
A SUMMER STORM AND SOME COMMENTS ON THE PICTURE POSTCARD
Shortly after leaving Ashtabula we ran into a storm—one of those fine, windy, dusty, tree-groaning rains that come up simply and magnificently and make you feel that you are going to be blown into kingdom come and struck by lightning en route. As we sped through great aisles of trees and through little towns all bare to our view through their open doors, as though they had not a thing to conceal or a marauder to fear, the wind began to rise and the trees to swish and whistle, and by the glare of our own powerful headlight we saw clouds of dust rolling toward us. A few heavy drops of water hit my head and face and someone, I suppose Franklin (let me put all the blame I can on him in this story—what else are hosts for?), suggested that we put up the top.
Now I, for one, vote automobile tops a nuisance. They are a crime, really. Here was a fine electric storm, with the heavens torn with great poles of light and the woods and the fields and distant little cottages revealed every few seconds with startling definiteness—and we had to put up the top. Why? Well, there were bags and coats and a camera and I know not what else, and these things had to be protected. My own glasses began to drip and my chin and my hair were very wet. So up went the top.
But, worse than that, the sides had to go up, for now the wind was driving the rain sidewise and we were all getting soaked anyhow—so up went the sides. Then, thus protected and with all the real beauty of the night shut out, we rattled along, I pressing my nose to the isinglass windows and wishing that I might see it all. I cursed God and man and close, stuffy automobiles. I snuggled down in my corner and began to dream again when presently, say one hour later, or two or three (it must have been two or three, now that I think of it), another enormous bridge such as that we had seen at Nicholsen, Pennsylvania, hove into view, down a curve which our lamps illuminated with amazing clearness.
“Whoa!” I called to Speed, as though he were a horse.