his deafening machinery and could not hear what was said. He left
them bickering by the roadside.

For fear of further pursuit, he turned off the highway a little
beyond, and rumbled noisily down a rustic lane between high banks
and hedges where sumac was turning red. Strangely enough, there
was something very comforting about his enormous crawling
contraption. It was docile and reliable, like an elephant. The
crashing clangour of its movement was soon forgotten-- became, in
fact, an actual stimulus to thought. For the mere pleasure of
novelty, he steered through a copse, and took joy in seeing the
monster thrash its way through thickets and brambles, and then
across a field of crackling stubble. Steering toward the lonelier
regions of that farming country, presently he halted in a dingle
of birches beside a small pond. He spent some time very happily,
carefully studying the machinery. He found some waste and an
oilcan in the tool-chest, and polished until the metal shone. The
water looked rather low in the gauge, and he replenished it from
the pool.

It was while grooming the roller that it struck him his own
appearance was unusual for a highway mechanic. He was still
wearing the famous floorwalker suit, which he had punctiliously
donned every Sunday for chapel. But he had had to flee without a
hat--even without his luggage, which was neatly packed in a bag
in the vestry. That, he felt sure, Mr. Poodle had already burst
open for evidences of heresy and schism. The pearly trousers were
stained with oil and coal-dust; the neat cutaway coat bore smears
of engine-grease. As long as he stuck to the roller and the
telltale garments, pursuit and identification would of course be