amends. I'll talk to the new cook," decided the young inventor.

"Oh, Tom, I don't believe it will do any good. She won't come, and
all my girl friends will arrive shortly." Miss Nestor was quite
distressed.

"Leave it to me," suggested the lad, with an assumed confidence he
did not feel. He left the car, and walked toward the office.
Entering it, with Miss Nestor in his wake, he saw a pleasant-faced
Irish girl, sitting on a bench, with a bundle beside her.

"And so you don't want to ride in an auto?" began Tom.

"No, an' it's no use of the likes of you askin' me, either,"
answered the girl, but not impudently. "I am afeered of thim things,
an' I won't work in a family that owns one."

"But we don't own one," said Mary.

The girl only sniffed.

"It is the very latest means of traveling," Tom went on, "and there
is absolutely no danger. I will drive slowly."

"No!" snapped the new cook.

Tom was rather at his wits' ends. At that moment the telephone rang,
and Tom and Mary, listening, could hear the proprietress of the
intelligence office talking to Mrs. Duy Puyster over the wire.