"Like these?" Mr. Quigg threw open one lid of a trunk, disclosing a velvet lined show case filled with photographs of different sizes.
They would now be considered antiquated affairs, but to Ralph the life-like attitudes and looks of the sitters seemed wonderful.
"Gracious, no!" he exclaimed. "That fellow only took little tintypes, as we folks call them. These beat anything I ever saw."
"Well, suppose we get breakfast," said Quigg, turning to his oil stove. "We'll be in Hendersonville in an hour. Can you cook?"
Ralph staggered to the stove, and took a puzzled look.
"I've cooked on a fireplace all my life, more or less. But I don't think much of that thing."
"Don't, eh? Well, well! You'll do for a dime museum, you will. Go and sit down, and watch me."
Ralph took a seat near the door, and divided his time between Mr. Quigg's culinary operations and the swiftly moving panorama outside.
The dizzy, yet smooth, motion of the car, the—to him—miraculous speed, the whirl and shimmer of the landscape—all this fascinated him after his first nervousness wore off.
The artist, however, recalled him from this sort of day dreaming, by saying: