literary guy, there is, to the porcupine, something
irresistibly comic in such a situation. It is to him as though the
literary guy had stepped up to the nearest policeman and begged for
the room at Sing Sing already referred to.

Indeed, the modern porcupine is as suspicious of pals of the
Auto-Comrade as the porcupines of the past were of sorcerers and
witches--folk, by the way, who probably consorted with spirits no more
malign than Auto-Comrades. "What," asked the porcupines of one
another, "can they be doing, all alone there in those solitary huts?
What honest man would live like that? Ah, they must be up to no good.
They must be hand in glove with the Evil One. Well, then, away with
them to the stake and the river!"

As a matter of fact, it probably was not the Evil One that these poor
folk were consorting with, but the Good One. For what is a man's
Auto-Comrade, anyway, but his own soul, or the same thing by what
other name soever he likes to call it, with which he divides the
practical, conscious part of his brain, turn and turn about, share and
share alike? And what is a man's own soul but a small stream of the
infinite, eternal water of life? And what is heaven but a vast harbor
where myriad streams of soul flow down, returning at last to their
Source in the bliss of perfect reunion? I believe that many a Salem
witch was dragged to her death from sanctuary; for church is not
exclusively connected with stained glass and collection-baskets.
Church is also wherever you and your Auto-Comrade can elude the
starched throng and fall together, if only for a moment, on your
knees.

The Auto-Comrade has much to gain by contrast with one's
flesh-and-blood associates, especially if this contrast is suddenly
brought home to one after a too long separation from him. I shall
never forget the thrill that was mine early one morning after two
months of close, uninterrupted communion with one of my best and
dearest friends. At the very instant when the turn of the road cut off
that friend's departing hand-wave, I was aware of a welcoming, almost
boisterous shout from the hills of dream, and turning quickly, beheld
my long-lost Auto-Comrade rushing eagerly down the slopes toward me.

Few joys may compare with the joy of such a sudden unexpected reunion.
It is like "the shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land." No,
this simile is too disloyal to my friend. Well, then, it is like a
beaker full of the warm South when you ar