aid up across the wheel and grasping the top of it. Brown
as bronze, those arms, as were his face and neck and chest down to
where the open V of his sport shirt was held closed with the loose
knot of a crimson tie that whipped his shoulder as he drove. A fine
looking fellow he was, sitting there like the incarnation of strength
and youth and fullblooded optimism. It was a pity that he was
drunk--he would have been a perfect specimen of young manhood, else.

The young man on the front seat beside him turned suddenly on those
behind. The lower half of his face was covered with a black muffler.
He had a gun, and he "cut down" on the group with disconcerting
realism.

"Hands up!" he intoned fearsomely. "I am the mysterious lone bandit of
the boulevards. Your jewels are the price of your lives!" The
six-shooter wavered, looking bleakly at one and then another.

After the first stunned interval, a shout of laughter went up from
those behind. "Good! Good idea!" one approved. And another, having some
familiarity with the mechanics of screen melodrama, shouted, "Camera!"

"Lone bandit nothing! We're _all_ mysterious auto bandits out seeking
whom we may devour!" cried a young man with a naturally attractive
face and beautiful teeth, hastily folding his handkerchief cornerwise
for a mask, and tying it behind his head--to the great discomfort of
his neighbors, who complained bitterly at having their eyes jabbed out
with his elbows.

The bandit play caught the crowd. For a few tumultuous minutes elbows
were up, mufflers and handkerchiefs flapping. There emerged from the
confusion six masked bandits, and three of them flourished
six-shooters with a recklessness that would have given a Texas man
cold chills down his spine. Jack, not daring to take his eyes off the
heaving asphalt, or his hands off the wheel, retained his natural
appearance until some generous soul behind him proceeded, in spite of
his impatient "Cut it out, fellows!" to confiscate his flapping, red
tie and bind it across his nose; which transformed Jack Corey into a
speeding fiend, if looks meant anything. Thereafter they threw
themselves back upon the suffering upholstery and commented gleefully
upon their banditish qualifications.

That grew tame, of course. They thirsted for mock horrors,
and two glaring moons rising swiftly over a hill gave the
psychological fillip to their imaginations.

"Come on-let's hold 'em up!" cried the young man on the front seat.