ough he had been released on furlough. "Grind, grind, grind," said
the car. "You will be back at it all to-morrow. This is not real. This
is a dream you're having." He shook himself. He was getting sleepy,
felt utterly fagged.

And then Mary Louise flashed across his mind. "Come on," she seemed to
say. "You're slipping. You're getting behind. They're all getting
ahead of you. You're not keeping up. Let's get in a little
more--little more--little more." He lurched against the top brace,
blinked, and straightened up. Beside him was the shadow bent a little
over the wheel. He could see the outline of the peak of the old golf
cap and the dim tracing of Zeke's face, about it a faint gleam, and
then the flash of an eye. He pondered. Here was Zeke doing his
work--playing his part in the scheme of things. _He_ was not bothered
by any notions of obligation. _He_ was not concerned with working out
his destiny. _He_ played his cards as he got them. "Sometime they roll
seven--and sometime they roll two," he remembered the words of a
philosopher of the rolling rubes a year ago--or was it a lifetime?
Bromley's! The Golden Rule! Mary Louise! All alike. "Shape yourself to
this pattern. Fill this niche. You've got to," said one. "Be like me.
Do as I do. Or get out," said another. "It costs so much to live this
way. And you have to. Or it's not worth living," said the third. How
about his way of looking at it?

He turned suddenly to the inscrutable face beside him.

"You don't let anybody cramp your style, do you, Zeke?" he said.

Zeke started. The sudden voice for a moment terrified him. "Nossuh, I
doesn'," he stammered, anxious to agree.

Joe's voice was kindly encouraging. "Well, don't you let them, ever."

"Nossuh, I won'." And singularly he spoke the truth.

They came to a stretch of sand and the car slowed down appreciably. In
addition there was a grade. And then came a flash of lightning over in
the west, straight ahead of them, and another, fan-shaped, like the
slow opening of a hand. In the momentary glare they saw the outlines
of a hill up before them, with the road clipping it in two. A
telephone pole on the crest stretched out spectral arms and leaned
away. And then darkness again.

Joe decided he had better tell Zeke the object of their mission. It
really didn't matter much, but then he wanted to talk.

"Do you reckon Mr. Bushrod's in Fillmore, Zeke?" he began, trying to
make it as conversational as possible.

"I