ere was one there and it did! The thing
hadn't been painted since the _Maine_ was blowed up, and you could see
the guy that had been keepin' it was fond of the open air, because
there was samples of mud from probably all over the world on it.

"You could believe it, you're gettin' it a practically brand new car!"
the young feller is tellin' the Kid. "The shoes are in A number one
condition--all they need is now vulcanizin', and Oi!--how that car
could travel!"

"Just a minute!" I butts in. "Before you make this sale, I want to
speak to my friend here."

Both him and the Kid glares at me, and the Kid pushes me aside.

"Lay off!" he says. "I know just what you're gonna say. There's no
use of you tryin' to discourage me, because I'm gonna buy a car. Here
I am makin' all kinds of money and I might as well be a bum!--no
automobile or nothin'. I should have had a car long ago; all the big
leaguers own their own tourin' cars. There's no class to you any more,
if you don't flit from place to place in your own bus!"

"Yeh?" I comes back. "Well, Washington never had no car, but that
didn't stop _him_ from gettin' over! I never heard of Columbus gettin'
pinched for speedin' and Shakespeare never had no trouble with
blowouts. Yet all them birds was looked on as the loud crash in their
time. What's the answer to that?"

In butts I. Markowitz, shovin' his hat back on his ears.

"That brings us right down to the present!" he says. "And I could tell
you why none of your friends had oitermobiles. Cars was too expensive
in them days--a millionaire even would have to talk it over with his
wife before they should buy one. But now, almost they give them away!
Materials is cheaper, in Europe the war is over and now competition
is--is--more! That's why I'm able to let your friend have this factory
pet here for eight hundred dollars. A bargain you ask me? A man never
heard a bargain like that!"

"Don't worry!" I tells him. "Nobody will ever hear about it from me.
If you made him a present of it and throwed in the garage, it would
still be expensive!"

"Who's buyin' this car?" snarls the Kid. "You or me?"

"Not guilty!" I says. "If you got to have a car, why don't you buy a
new one?"

"This is the same as new!" pipes I. Markowitz.

"Speak when you're spoken to, Stupid!" I says.

"Don't start nothin' here," the Kid tells me, pullin' me away. "I
don't want none of them new cars. They're too stiff and I might