sness that would have shamed a novice,
just before starting on the ride from which he never returned. The price
of debate is too high to argue with some things; Gerard temporized.

"I don't want to take you out feeling like that. Give yourself a day
off," he suggested. "I'll find one of the factory men to go out with me
for the morning's practice."

"Who's crazy now?" inquired his mechanician acidly, and flung himself
back in his narrow seat.

The Mercury slipped through Mr. Rose's winding drives, plunged into the
sandy Long Island road, and sped lurching toward the course.

There was nothing dull or depressing about the starting point, at the
Motor Parkway. Before the busy row of repair pits throbbed and panted
some of the cars, surrounded by their force of workers; in other camps
the men stood, watch in hand, timing the machines already out.
Reporters vibrated everywhere; surrounded by an admiring group, two
world-famous French and Italian drivers were pitching pennies for the
last cigarettes from a box of special brand. Only the tiers of empty
seats in the grand-stand and the absence of spectators in fields and
parking-spaces distinguished this practice morning from the actual race.

There was a general movement of greeting as the Mercury rolled in and
Gerard sprang out at his own camp.

"Where's your pink pet, Allan?" called a driver, from the starting line.
"What's up--mornin' air too crude for millionaire kids?"

"He _isn't_ up," was the blithe reply. "Never mind Rose, he's coming;
tell me where you got your five-cylinder machine, Jack."

"A late Rose, eh? Oh, I've got six cylinders here, all right, but I
daren't run on all of them now for fear my speed would make the rest of
you quit, discouraged. I'm goin' to make your yesterday's record look
like a last year's timetable, this mornin'."

"You look out that you don't break your neck. Rupert says it's a hoodoo
day. We don't want you in the hospital twice this season."

"Is Rupert sad?" questioned the big blonde pilot of the neighboring
camp, leaning over the railing.

"I ain't been so near it since I put my foot in a hole and sprained my
ankle ten minutes before the start, when I was racing with Darling
French at Philadelphia," admitted the mechanician. "It hurt me fierce."

"Your ankle?"

"No, seeing him start without me."

"Say, Gerard, there's your pink Rambler," a distant voice signified.

About to send his car forward, Gerard paused to glance