He and Nellie Custis were in the garage. It had once been a barn, but the boarders had bought cars, so there was now the smell of gasoline where there had once been the sweet scent of hay. And intermittently the air was rent with puffs and snorts and shrieks which drowned the music of that living chorus which has been sung in stables for centuries.
There were three cars. Two of them have nothing to do with this story, but the third will play its part, and merits therefore description.
It was not an expensive car, but it was new and shining, and had a perky snub-nosed air of being ready for anything. It belonged to the genial gentleman who used it without mercy, and thus the little car wove back and forth over the hills like a shuttle, doing its work sturdily, coming home somewhat noisily, and even at rest, seeming to ask for something more to do.
The genial gentleman was very proud of his car. He talked a great deal about it to Randy, and on this particular morning when he came out and found young Paine sitting on a wheelbarrow with Nellie Custis lending him a cocked ear, he grew eloquent.
"Look here, I've been thinking. There ought to be a lot of cars like this in the county."
To Randy the enthusiasms of the genial gentleman were a constant source of amazement. He was always wanting the world to be glad about something. Randy felt that at this moment any assumption of gladness would be a hollow mockery.
"Any man," said the genial gentleman, rubbing a cloth over the enamel of the little car, "any man who would start selling this machine down here would make a fortune."
"Selling cars. Why, the babies cry for them----" he chuckled and rubbed harder.
"How much could he make?" Randy found himself saying.
The genial gentleman named a sum, "Easy."
Randy got up from the wheelbarrow and came over. "Is she really as good as that?"
"Is she really? Oh, say----" the genial gentleman for the next ten minutes dealt in superlatives.
Towards the end, Randy was firing questions at him.
"Could I own a car while I was selling them?"
"Sure--they'd let you have it on installments to be paid for out of your commissions----"
"My dear boy, in a month you could have cars like this running up and down the hills like ants after sugar. They speak for themselves, and they are cheap enough for anybody."