day assured him there was "a good, fair fightin' chance" that it might
be.

Then, after leaving South Wellmouth, he had dined at the Rogers' House
in Wellmouth Centre, "matching" a friend for the dinners and "sticking"
the said friend for them and for the cigars afterward. Following this he
had joined other friends in a little game in Elmer Rogers' back room and
had emerged from that room three dollars and seventy-two cents ahead.
No wonder he sang as he drove homeward. No wonder he looked quite care
free. And, as a matter of fact, care free he was, that is, as care free
as one is permitted to be in this care-ridden world. Down underneath his
bright exterior there were a few cankers which might have gnawed had
he permitted himself to think of them, but he did not so permit.
Mr. Pulcifer's motto had always been: "Let the other feller do the
worryin'." And, generally speaking, in a deal with Raish that, sooner or
later, was what the other fellow did.

The fog and dusk thickened, Mr. Pulcifer sang, and the flivver wheezed
and rattled and splashed onward. At a particularly dark spot, where the
main road joined a cross country byroad, Raish drew up and climbed out
to light the car lamps, which were of the old-fashioned type requiring
a gas tank and matches. He had lighted one and was bending forward with
the match ready to light the other when a voice at his elbow said:

"I beg your pardon, but--but will you kindly tell me where I am?"

It was not a loud, aggressive voice; on the contrary, it was hesitating
and almost timid, but when one is supposedly alone at twilight on the
East Wellmouth road any sort of voice sounding unexpectedly just above
one's head is startling. Mr. Pulcifer's match went out, he started