I clicked to Pegasus and we rumbled gently off over the upland,
looking down across the pastures. Distant cow bells sounded
tankle-tonk among the bushes. Across the slope of the hill I could
see the road winding away to Redfield. Somewhere along that road
Andrew would be rolling back toward home and roast pork with apple
sauce; and here was I, setting out on the first madness of my life
without even a qualm.

"Miss McGill," said the little man, "this rolling pavilion has been
wife, doctor, and religion to me for seven years. A month ago I
would have scoffed at the thought of leaving her; but somehow it's
come over me I need a change. There's a book I've been yearning to
write for a long time, and I need a desk steady under my elbows and
a roof over my head. And silly as it seems, I'm crazy to get back
to Brooklyn. My brother and I used to live there as kids. Think
of walking over the old Bridge at sunset and seeing the towers of
Manhattan against a red sky! And those old gray cruisers down in the
Navy Yard! You don't know how tickled I am to sell out. I've sold a
lot of copies of your brother's books and I've often thought he'd be
the man to buy Parnassus if I got tired of her."

"So he would," I said. "Just the man. He'd be only too likely
to--and go maundering about in this jaunting car and neglect the
farm. But tell me about selling books. How much profit do you make
out of it? We'll be passing Mrs. Mason's farm, by and by, and we
might as well sell her something just to make a start."

"It's very simple," he said. "I replenish my stock whenever I go
through a big town. There's always a second-hand bookstore somewhere
about, where you can pick up odds and ends. And every now and then I