hing surly and climbed into the front seat next to
Blackie, leaving me to occupy the tonneau in solitary state.

Peter began to ask questions--dozens of them, which Blackie answered,
patiently and fully. I could not hear all that they said, but I saw
that Peter was urging Blackie to greater speed, and that Blackie was
explaining that he must first leave the crowded streets behind. Suddenly
Peter made a gesture in the direction of the wheel, and said something
in a high, sharp voice. Blackie's answer was quick and decidedly in
the negative. The next instant Peter Orme rose in his place and leaning
forward and upward, grasped the wheel that was in Blackie's hands. The
car swerved sickeningly. I noticed, dully, that Blackie did not go white
as novelists say men do in moments of horror. A dull red flush crept to
the very base of his neck. With a twist of his frail body he tried to
throw off Peter's hands. I remember leaning over the back of the seat
and trying to pull Peter back as I realized that it was a madman with
whom we were dealing. Nothing seemed real. It was ridiculously like the
things one sees in the moving picture theaters. I felt no fear.

"Sit down, Orme!" Blackie yelled. "You'll ditch us! Dawn! God!--"

We shot down a little hill. Two wheels were lifted from the ground. The
machine was poised in the air for a second before it crashed into the
ditch and turned over completely, throwing me clear, but burying Blackie
and Peter under its weight of steel and wood and whirring wheels.

I remember rising from the ground, and sinking back again and rising
once more to run forward to where the car lay in the ditch, and tugging
at that great frame of steel with crazy, futile fingers. Then I ran
screaming down the road toward a man who was tranquilly working in a
field nearby.

CHAPTER XX. BLACKIE'S VACATION COMES

The shabby blue office coat hangs on the hook in the little sporting
room where Blackie placed it. No one dreams of moving it. There it
dangles, out at elbows, disreputable, its pockets burned from many a hot
pipe thrust carelessly into them, its cuffs frayed, its lapels bearing
the marks of cigarette, paste-pot and pen.

It is that faded old garment, more than anything else, which makes
us fail to realize that its owner will never again slip into its
comfortable folds. We cannot believe that a lifeless rag like that can
triumph over the man of flesh and blood and nerves and sympathies. With
what