by-the-day, or a
pool-room habitue. It conceals more skeletons than the catacombs. Chug
Scaritt, had he cared to open his lips and speak, might have poured
forth such chronicles as to make Spoon River sound a paean of sweetness
and light. He knew how much Old Man Hatton's chauffeur knocked down on
gas and repairs; he knew just how much the Tillotsons had gone into debt
for their twin-six, and why Emil Sauter drove to Oshkosh so often on
business, and who supplied the flowers for Mrs. Gurnee's electric. Chug
didn't encourage gossip in his garage. Whenever possible he put his foot
down on its ugly head in a vain attempt to crush it. But there was
something about the very atmosphere of the place that caused it to
thrive and flourish. It was like a combination newspaper office and
Pullman car smoker. Chug tried to keep the thing down but there might
generally be seen lounging about the doorway or perched on the running
board of an idle car a little group of slim, flat-heeled, low-voiced
young men in form-fitting, high-waisted suits of that peculiarly
virulent shade of green which makes its wearer look as if he had been
picked before he was ripe.

They were a lean, slim-flanked crew with a feline sort of grace about
them; terse of speech, quick of eye, engine-wise, and, generally,
nursing a boil just above the collar of their soft shirt. Not vicious.
Not even tough. Rather bored, though they didn't know it. In their
boredom resorting to the only sort of solace afforded boys of their
class in a town of Chippewa's size: cheap amusements, cheap girls, cheap
talk. This last unless the topic chanced to be of games or of things
mechanical. Baseball, or a sweet-running engine brought out the best
that was in them. At their worst, perhaps, they stood well back in the
dim, cool shade of the garage doorway to watch how, when the girls went
by in their thin summer dresses, the strong sunlight made a transparency
of their skirts. At supper time they would growl to their surprised
sisters:

"Put on some petticoats, you. Way you girls run around it's enough to
make a person sick."

Chug Scaritt escaped being one of these by a double margin. There was
his business responsibility on one side; his very early history on the
other. Once you learn the derivation of Chug's nickname you have that
history from the age of five to twenty-five, inclusive.

Chug had been christened Floyd (she had got it out of a book) but it was
an appendix rathe