to know why the stubborn thing does not go? Who has not seen
skilled mechanics in blue jeans and unskilled amateurs in jeans of
leather, so to speak, flat on their backs under the vehicle,
peering upward into the intricacies of the mechanism, trying to
find the cause,--the obscure, the hidden source of all their
trouble? And then the probing with wires, the tugs with wrenches,
the wrestling with screw-drivers, the many trials,--for the most
part futile,--the subdued language of the bunkers, and at length,
when least expected, a start, and the machine goes off as if
nothing at all had been the matter. It is then the skilled driver
looks wise and does not betray his surprise to the gaping crowd,
just looks as if the start were the anticipated result of his
well-directed efforts instead of a chance hit amidst blind
gropings.

One cannot but sympathize with the vanity of the French chauffeur
who stops his machine in the midst of a crowd when it is working
perfectly, makes a few idle passes with wrenches and oil-cans,
pulls a lever and is off, all for the pleasure of hearing the
populace remark, "He understands his machine. He is a good one."
While the poor fellow, who really is in trouble, sweats and groans
and all but swears as he works in vain to find what is the matter,
to the delight of the onlookers who laugh at what seems to them
ignorance and lack of skill.

And why should not these things be? Is not the crowd multitude
always with us--or against us? There is no spot so dreary, no
country so waste, no highway so far removed from the habitations
and haunts of man that a crowd of gaping people will not spring up
when an automobile stops for repairs. Choose a plain, the broad