against it, Jessica," he groaned.

"What's the matter? Won't they take it? Never mind; there are others."

"Oh, yes, they 'll take it and take care of it for fifteen or twenty
dollars a month, according to the amount of work I have them do on it."

"Why, I never heard of such a thing! Does it cost that--all that? But
then, the _car_ does n't cost anything," she added soothingly, after a
pause.

"Oh, no, the car doesn't cost anything--only eight or ten dollars to
bring it down by train, or else two dollars an hour for a chauffeur to
run it down for us," retorted her husband.

"Eight or ten dollars! Two dollars an hour to run it!" gasped Jessica.
"Why, Herbert, what shall we do? There is only ten dollars now of the
household money to last the rest of the month; and there 's this week's
grocery bill and a dollar and a half for the laundry to pay!"

"That's exactly it--what shall we do?" snapped Herbert. This thing was
getting on his nerves.

"But we must do," laughed Jessica hysterically. "The idea of giving up
a three-thousand-dollar automobile because one owes a grocery bill and
a dollar and a half for laundry!"

"Well, we can't eat the automobile, and 't won't wash our clothes for
us."

"Naturally not! Who wants it to?" Jessica's nerves, also, were
feeling the strain.

"We might--sell it."

"Sell it! Sell our automobile!" flamed Jessica; and to hear her, one
would think the proposition was to sell an old family heirloom, beloved
for years.

Her husband sighed.

"Isn't there something somewhere about selling the pot to get something
to put into it?" he muttered dismally, as he rose to lock up the house
for the night. "Well, I fancy that's what we 'll have to do--sell the
automobile to get money enough to move it!"

Two days later the automobile came. Perhaps the grocer waited.
Perhaps the laundry bill went unpaid. Perhaps an obliging friend
advanced a loan. Whatever it was, spic and span in Dearborn's garage
stood the three-thousand-dollar automobile, the admired of every eye.

June had gone, and July was weeks old, however, before the
preliminaries of license and lessons were over, and Mr. and Mrs.
Herbert Wheeler could enter into the full knowledge of what it meant to
be the joyous possessors of an automobile which one could run one's
self.

"And now we'll take our friends," cried Jessica. "Who'll go first?"

"Let's begin with the A's--the Arnolds. They 're always doing things
f