eant it.

"All right," says I. "Then maybe when I see how you come out I'll have
something definite to report."

"You should," says he.

That's where we dropped the subject. It's some swell ride we had up
along the top of the Palisades, and on and on until we're well across
the State line into New York. Along about four-thirty he says we're
most there. We was rollin' through a jay four corners, where the
postoffice occupies one window of the gen'ral store, with the Masonic
Lodge overhead, when alongside the road we comes across a little
tow-headed girl, maybe eight or nine, pawin' around in the grass and
sobbin' doleful.

"Hold up, Martin," sings out Mr. Sturgis to the chauffeur, and Martin
jams on his emergency so the brake drums squeal.

What do you guess? Why Percey J. climbs out, asks the kid gentle what
all the woe is about, and discovers that she's lost a whole nickel that
Daddy has given her to buy lolly-pops with on account of its bein' her
birthday.

"Now that's too bad, isn't it, little one?" says Mr. Sturgis. "But I
guess we can fix that. Come on. Martin, take us back to the store."

Took out his handkerchief, Percey did, and swabbed off the tear stains,
all the while talkin' low and soothin' to the kid, until he got her
calmed down. And when they came out of the store she was carryin' a
pound box of choc'late creams tied up flossy with a pink ribbon. With
her eyes bugged and so tickled she can't say a word, she lets go of his
hand and dashes back up the road, most likely bent on showin' the folks
at home the results of the miracle that's happened to her.

That's the kind of a guy Percey J. Sturgis is, even when he has worries
of his own. You'd most thought he was due for a run of luck after a
kind act like that. But someone must have had their fingers crossed;
for as Martin backs up to turn around he connects a rear tire with a
broken ginger ale bottle and--s-s-s-sh! out goes eighty-five pounds'
pressure to the square inch. No remark from Mr. Sturgis. He lights a
fresh cigar and for twenty-five minutes by the dash clock Martin is
busy shiftin' that husky shoe.

So we're some behind schedule when we pulls up under the horse chestnut
trees a quarter of a mile beyond in front of a barny, weather-beaten
old farmhouse where there's a sour-faced, square-jawed old pirate
sittin' in a home made barrel chair smokin' his pipe and scowlin'
gloomy at the world in gen'ral. It's Ross himself. Pe