; the water underfoot splashed their itching ankles. They
scuffled inch by inch for three blocks. In front of Harry Haydock's
Kennicott sighed:

"We better stop in here and 'phone for a machine."

She followed him like a wet kitten.

The Haydocks saw them laboring up the slippery concrete walk, up the
perilous front steps, and came to the door chanting:

"Well, well, well, back again, eh? Say, this is fine! Have a fine trip?
My, you look like a rose, Carol. How did you like the coast, doc? Well,
well, well! Where-all did you go?"

But as Kennicott began to proclaim the list of places achieved, Harry
interrupted with an account of how much he himself had seen, two years
ago. When Kennicott boasted, "We went through the mission at Santa
Barbara," Harry broke in, "Yeh, that's an interesting old mission. Say,
I'll never forget that hotel there, doc. It was swell. Why, the rooms
were made just like these old monasteries. Juanita and I went from Santa
Barbara to San Luis Obispo. You folks go to San Luis Obispo?"

"No, but----"

"Well you ought to gone to San Luis Obispo. And then we went from there
to a ranch, least they called it a ranch----"

Kennicott got in only one considerable narrative, which began:

"Say, I never knew--did you, Harry?--that in the Chicago district the
Kutz Kar sells as well as the Overland? I never thought much of the
Kutz. But I met a gentleman on the train--it was when we were pulling
out of Albuquerque, and I was sitting on the back platform of the
observation car, and this man was next to me and he asked me for a
light, and we got to talking, and come to find out, he came from Aurora,
and when he found out I came from Minnesota he asked me if I knew Dr.
Clemworth of Red Wing, and of course, while I've never met him, I've
heard of Clemworth lots of times, and seems he's this man's brother!
Quite a coincidence! Well, we got to talking, and we called the
porter--that was a pretty good porter on that car--and we had a couple
bottles of ginger ale, and I happened to mention the Kutz Kar, and this
man--seems he's driven a lot of different kinds of cars--he's got
a Franklin now--and he said that he'd tried the Kutz and liked it
first-rate. Well, when we got into a station--I don't remember the name
of it--Carrie, what the deuce was the name of that first stop we made
the other side of Albuquerque?--well, anyway, I guess we must have
stopped there to take on water, and this man and I got out to