At the outskirts of the little village of West Brookfield we came
to a stand-still; the spark disappeared,--or rather from a large,
round, fat spark it dropped to an insignificant little blue
sparklet that would not explode a squib.

The way the spark acted with either or both batteries on indicated
pretty strongly that the trouble was in the coil; but it is so
seldom a coil goes wrong that everything was looked over, but no
spark of any size was to be had, therefore there was nothing to do
but cast about for a place to spend the night, for it was then
dark.

As good luck would have it, we were almost in front of a large,
comfortable, old-fashioned house where they took summer boarders;
as the season was drawing to a close, there was plenty of room and
they were glad to take us in. The machine was pushed into a shed,
everybody assisting with the readiness ever characteristic of
sympathetic on-lookers.

The big, clean, white rooms were most inviting; the homely New
England supper of cold meats and hot rolls seemed under the
circumstances a feast for a king, and as we sat in front of the
house in the evening, and looked across the highway to a little
lake just beyond and heard the croaking of the frogs, the chirping
of crickets, and the many indistinguishable sounds of night, we
were not sorry the machine had played us false exactly when and
where it did.

The automobile plays into the hands of Morpheus, the drowsy god
follows in its wake, sure of his victims. No sleep is dreamless.