"Yes, but----" began Claire. Her father interrupted: "Uh, Mr., uh--Daggett, was it?--I wonder if you won't stay a little
closer to us hereafter? I was getting rather a good change out of the
trip, but I'm afraid that now---- If it wouldn't be an insult, I'd beg
you to consider staying with us for a consideration, uh, you know,
remuneration, and you could----"
"Thanks, uh, thank you, sir, but I wouldn't like to do it. You see, it's
kind of my vacation. If I've done anything I'm tickled----"
"But perhaps," Mr. Boltwood ardently begged the young man recently so
abysmally unimportant, "perhaps you would consent to being my guest,
when you cared to--say at hotels in the Park."
"'Fraid I couldn't. I'm kind of a lone wolf."
"Please! Pretty please!" besought Claire. Her smile was appealing, her
eyes on his.
Milt bit his knuckles. He looked weak. But he persisted, "No, you'll get
over this scrap with our friend. By the way, I'll put the deputy onto
him, in the next town. He'll never get out of the county. When you
forget him---- Oh no, you can go on fine. You're a good steady driver,
and the road's perfectly safe--if you give people the once-over before
you pick 'em up. Picking up badmen is no more dangerous here than it
would be in New York. Fact, there's lot more hold-ups in any city than
in the wildest country. I don't think you showed such awfully good taste
in asking Terrible Tim, the two-gun man, right into the parlor. Gee,
please don't do it again! Please!"
"No," meekly. "I was an idiot. I'll be good, next time. But won't you
stay somewhere near us?"
"I'd like to, but I got to chase on. Don't want to wear out the welcome
on the doormat, and I'm due in Seattle, and---- Say, Miss Boltwood." He
swung out of the bug, cranked up, climbed back, went awkwardly on, "I
read those books you gave me. They're slick--mean to say, interesting.
Where that young fellow in Youth's Encounter wanted to be a bishop and
a soldier and everything---- Just like me, except Schoenstrom is
different, from London, some ways! I always wanted to be a brakie, and
then a yeggman. But I wasn't bright enough for either. I just became a
garage man. And I---- Some day I'm going to stop using slang. But it'll
take an operation!"
He was streaking down the road, and Claire was sobbing, "Oh, the lamb,
the darling thing! Fretting about his slang, when he wasn't afraid in
that horrible nightmare. If we could just do something for him!"
"Don't you worry about him, dolly. He's a very energetic chap. And----
Uh---- Mightn't we drive on a little farther, perhaps? I confess that
the thought of our recent guest still in this vicinity----"