an a
couple of hundred miles an hour, and I was sore at the whole outfit
because they refused to accommodate me.

Still, we got over the ground at such a clip that on the third day, with
screech of whistle and clang of bell, we slowed at Oakland pier, where a
crowd was cheering like the end of a race--which it was--and kodak fiends
were underfoot as if I'd been somebody.

A motor-boat was waiting, and the race went on across the bay, where
Crawford met me with the _Yellow Peril_ at the ferry depot. I was told
that I was in time, and when I got my hand on the wheel, and turned the
_Peril_ loose, it seemed, for the first time since leaving home, that fate
was standing back and letting me run things.

Policemen waved their arms and said things at the way we went up Market
Street, but I only turned it on a bit more and tried not to run over any
humans; a dog got it, though, just as we whipped into Sacramento Street.
I remember wishing that Frosty was with me, to be convinced that motors
aren't so bad after all.

It was good to come tearing up the hill with the horn bellowing for a
clear track, and to slow down just enough to make the turn between our
bronze mastiffs, and skid up the drive, stopping at just the right instant
to avoid going clear through the stable and trespassing upon our
neighbor's flower-beds. It was good--but I don't believe Crawford
appreciated the fact; imperturbable as he was, I fancied that he looked
relieved when his feet touched the gravel. I was human enough to enjoy
scaring Crawford a bit, and even regretted that I had not shaved closer to
a collision.

Then I was up-stairs, in an atmosphere of drugs and trained nurses and
funeral quiet, and knew for a certainty that I was still in time, and that
dad knew me and was glad to have me there. I had never seen dad in bed
before, and all my life he had been associated in my mind with calm
self-possession and power and perfect grooming. To see him lying there
like that, so white and weak and so utterly helpless, gave me a shock that
I was quite unprepared for. I came mighty near acting like a woman with
hysterics--and, coming as it did right after that run in the _Peril_,
I gave Crawford something of a shock, too, I think. I know he got me by the
shoulders and hustled me out of the room, and he was looking pretty shaky
himself; and if his eyes weren't watery, then I saw exceedingly, crooked.

A doctor came and made me swallow something, and told me