rive too fast. I should like to
see this wonderful new store, to be sure."

"We'll go any pace you like, sir. I've been looking for a day when you
could make the trip safely, and this is it." He glanced at the letters.
"Could you be ready in--half an hour?"

"As soon as I can dictate four short replies. Ring for Mr. Stanton,
please, and I'll soon be with you."

Richard went out as his grandfather's private secretary came in.
Although Matthew Kendrick no longer felt it necessary to go to his
office in the great store every day, he was accustomed to attend to a
certain amount of selected correspondence, and ordinarily spent an hour
after breakfast in dictation to a young stenographer who came to him for
the purpose.

Within a half hour the two were off, Mr. Kendrick being quite as alert
in the matter of dispatching business and getting under way toward fresh
affairs as he had ever been. It was with an expression of interested
anticipation that the old man, wrapped from head to foot, took his place
in the long, low-hung roadster, beneath the broad hood which Richard had
raised, that his passenger might be as snug as possible.

For many miles the road was of macadam, and they bowled along at a rate
which consumed the distance swiftly, though not too fast for Mr.
Kendrick's comfort. Richard artfully increased his speed by fractional
degrees, so that his grandfather, accustomed to being conveyed at a very
moderate mileage about the city in his closed car, should not be
startled by the sense of flight which he might have had if the young man
had started at his usual break-neck pace.

They did not talk much, for Matthew Kendrick was habitually cautious
about using his voice in winter air, and Richard was too engaged with
the car and with his own thoughts to attempt to keep up a one-sided
conversation. More than once, however, a brief colloquy took place. One
of the last of these, before approaching their destination, was as
follows:

"Keeping warm, grandfather?"

"Perfectly, Dick, thanks to your foot-warmer."

"Tired, at all?"

"Not a particle. On the contrary, I find the air very stimulating."

"I thought you would. Wonderful day for March, isn't it?"

"Unusually fine."

"We'll be there before you know it. There's one bad stretch of a couple
of miles, beyond the turn ahead, and another just this side of Eastman,
but Old Faithful here will make light work of 'em. She could plough
through a quicksand if she had