re still wet, he covered them with oil--preferably
lubricating oil, medium. Finally he rubbed sawdust over all; great
handfuls of it. The grease rolled out then, magically, leaving his skin
smooth and white. Old Rudie, while advocating this process, made little
use of it. He dispatched the whole grimy business by the simple method
of washing in gasoline guaranteed to take the varnish off a car fender.
It seemed to leave Rudie's tough hide undevastated.

At twenty-four Chug Scaritt was an upstanding, level-headed, and
successful young fellow who worked hard all day and found himself
restless and almost irritable toward evening. He could stay home and
read, or go back to the garage, though after eight things were very
quiet. For amusement there were the pool shack, the cheap dances, the
street corner, the Y.M.C.A. This last had proved a boon. The swimming
pool, the gym, the reading room, had given Chug many happy, healthful
hours. But, after all, there was something--

Chug didn't know it was girls--girls you could talk to, and be with, and
take around. But it was. After an hour in the pool, or around the
reading table, or talking and smoking, he usually drifted out into the
quiet street. He could go home. Or there was Wanda. If he went home he
found himself snapping rather irritably at his mother, for no reason at
all. Ashamed of doing it. Powerless, somehow, to stop.

He took to driving in the evening: long drives along the country roads,
his cap pulled low over his eyes, the wind blowing fresh in his face. He
used to cover mile on mile, sitting slumped low on his spine, his eyes
on the road; the engine running sweet and true. Sometimes he took Wanda
along, or one of the mill girls. But not often. They were disappointed
if you didn't drive with one arm around them. He liked being alone. It
soothed him.

It was thus that he first met the Weld girl. The Weld girl was the plain
daughter of the Widow Weld. The Widow Weld was a musical-comedy sort of
widow in French-heeled, patent-leather slippers and girlish gowns. When
you met her together with her daughter Elizabeth you were supposed to
say, "Not mother and daughter! Surely not! Sisters, of course."
Elizabeth was twenty-four and not a success. At the golf-club dances on
Saturday night she would sit, unsought, against the wall while her
skittish mother tripped it with the doggish bachelors. Sometimes a man
would cross the floor toward her and her heart would give a litt