The Rise of Roscoe Paine | Page 8

The day was a gorgeous one, the air bracing as a tonic, and my thirtieth
birthday was not yet so far astern as to be lost in the fog. After all, there
were some consolations in being alive and in a state of health not
"debilitated." I began to whistle.
A quarter of a mile from the junction of the Shore Lane, on the Lower
Road, was a willow-shaded spot, where the brook which irrigated
Elnathan Mullet's cranberry swamp ran under a small wooden bridge. It
was there that I first heard the horn and, turning, saw the automobile
coming from behind me. It was approaching at a speed of, I should say,
thirty miles an hour, and I jumped to the rail of the bridge to let it pass.
Autos were not as common on the Cape then as they have become since.
Now the average pedestrian of common-sense jumps first and looks
afterwards.
However, I jumped in time, and stood still to watch the car as it went
by. But it did not go by--not then. Its speed slackened as it approached
and it came to a halt on the bridge beside me. A big car; an aristocratic

car; a machine of pomp and price and polish, such as Denboro saw but
seldom. It contained three persons--a capped and goggled chauffeur on
the front seat, and a young fellow and a girl in the tonneau. They
attracted my attention in just that order--first the chauffeur, then the
young fellow, and, last of all, the girl.
It was the chauffeur who hailed me. He leaned across the upholstery
beside him and, still holding the wheel, said:
"Say, Bill, what's the quickest way to get to Bayport?"
Now my name doesn't happen to be Bill and just then I objected to the
re-christening. At another time I might have appreciated the joke and
given him the information without comment. But this morning I didn't
feel like joking. My dissatisfaction with the world in general included
automobilists who made common folks get out of their way, and I was
resentful.
"I should say that you had picked about as quick a way as any," I
answered.
The chauffeur didn't seem to grasp the true inwardness of this brilliant
bit.
"Aw, what--" he stammered. "Say, what--look here, I asked you--"
Then the young man in the tonneau took charge of the conversation. He
was a very young man, with blond hair and a silky mustache, and his
clothes fitted him as clothes have no right to fit--on Cape Cod.
"That'll do, Oscar," he ordered. Then, turning to me, he said:
"See here, my man, we want to go to Bayport."
I was not his man, and wouldn't have been for something. The
chauffeur had irritated me, but he irritated me more. I didn't like him,
his looks, his clothes, and, particularly, his manner. Therefore, because
I didn't feel like answering, I showed my independence by remaining

silent.
"What's the matter?" he demanded, impatiently. "Are you deaf? I say
we want to go to Bayport."
A newspaper joke which I had recently read came to my mind. "Very
well," I said, "you have my permission."
It was a rude thing to say, and not even original. I don't attempt to
excuse it. In fact, I was sorry as soon as I had said it. It had its effect.
The young man turned red. Then he laughed aloud.
"Well, by Jove!" he exclaimed. "What have we here? A humorist, I do
believe! Mabel, we've discovered a genuine, rural humorist. Another
David Harum, by Jove! Look at him!"
The girl in the tonneau swept aside her veil and looked, as directed.
And I looked at her. The face that I saw was sweet and refined and
delicate, a beautiful young face, the face of a lady, born and bred. All
this I saw and realized at a glance; but what I was most conscious of at
the time was the look in the dark eyes as they surveyed me from head
to foot. Indifference was there, and contemptuous amusement; she
didn't even condescend to smile, much less speak. Under that look my
self-importance shrank until the yellow dog with which I had compared
myself loomed as large as an elephant. She might have looked that way
at some curious and rather ridiculous bug, just before calling a servant
to step on it.
The young man laughed again. "Isn't it a wonder, Mabel?" he asked.
"The native wit on his native heath! Reuben--pardon me, your name is
Reuben, isn't it?--now that you've had your little joke, would you
condescend to tell us the road which we should take to reach Bayport in
the shortest time? Would you oblige us to that extent?"
The young lady smiled at this.