"Oh, I'm not going to break anything," said pa with the satisfied
look of a person who doesn't know anything about it.

"Don't you be too sure about that," I said. "I've been around
enough with Lewis Wentz to know better."

"Well, you see," said pa, "that depends on how much you use your
automobile. If you never take it out at all you eliminate most
of the bothers connected with it."

"Never take it out at all?" I cried.

"On my day it stays in the barn," he said.

I began to see now what he was smiling at. Wasn't it awful of
him? He simply meant to tie it up for a quarter of the time.

"Now, Virgie," he said, "you mustn't think that I am not
stretching a point to promise you what I have. It's too blamed
dangerous and you're all the little girl I have. Well, if you
must do it, I am going to cut the risk by twenty-five per cent
and my automobile days will be blanks."

I flared up at this. It's awful when your father wants to do
something you're ashamed of. It was such a dog-in-the-manger
idea, too, and so unsportsmanlike. But nothing could shake pa,
though I tried and tried, and said things that ought to have
pierced a rhinoceros. But pa ran for governor once, and his
skin's thicker. I felt almost sorry we hadn't taken in Morty
Truslow instead--not really, you know, but just for the moment.