their goggles and slipped off their linen dusters and changed forthwith
from a group of flying gnomes into five tired-looking citizens of
California. Two middle aged women. Two middle-aged men and a son.

One of the men said, "Well, we'll lay up here for awhile, I got a blister
on my hand from the wheel."

One of the women answered, "I must buy some hairpins, Martin."

The newspaper man said to himself, "What ho! I'll give them a ring. Why
not? A story of the modern wanderlust. Anyway, they're not averse to
publicity seeing they've got two 'coast to coast' pennants on the back of
their machine. What they've seen. Why they've journeyed. A tirade against
the monotony of business. And I'll stick in one of Hovey's stanzas, the
one that goes:

"There's a schooner in the offing
With her topsails shot with fire.
And my heart has gone aboard her
For the Islands of Desire."

"You can say," said the spokesman of the wanderers, "that this is Martin
S. Stevers and party. I am Mr. Stevers of the Stevers Linseed Oil Company
in San Francisco. Here's my card."

"Thanks," said the newspaper man, taking the card.

"And now," spake on the spokesman of the wanderers, "what can I do for
you?"