The car took on a considerable pace. Jacob's best straw hat flew off, but he did not mention it. His red hair stood endwise, all ways, on his head; his eyes started; his hands gripped--one at the rail, one at the knee of his companion. The wind raised by the motion of the car became a gale and forced itself into his lungs. Jacob gasped: "It's--on account--of Batty." "I have a little boy of my own," observed Mr. Chester. Plainly thinking to divert the attention of the anguished father, he continued: "_He_ had an accident this summer--he was hurt by a scythe; he slipped away from his nurse. He was pretty badly hurt. I was away--I hurried from Bar Harbor to get to him. I think I know how you feel." "Did you have a telegraph, sir?" asked Dryver, rousing to the throb of the common human poise. "Yes, there was a telegram. But I was a good while getting it. I understand your position." "Did he ever get over it--your little boy? Oh, I see; that was him I heard. 'Popper,' he says--'Popper.'" Above the whir of the automobile, above the chatter of the exhaust, above the voice of the wind, the sound of a man's muffled groan came distinctly to the ear that was fine enough to hear it. "Trust me," said Chester, gently. "I'll get you there. I'll get you to your boy." The gentleman's face was almost as white now as Jacob Dryver's. The fog glistened upon his mustache and made him look a gray-haired man, as he emerged from gulfs of darkness and shot by widely scattered dim street lamps. Both men had acquired something of the same expression--the rude face and the finished one; both wore the solemn, elemental look of fatherhood. The heart of one repeated piteously: "It's Batty." But the other thought: "What if it were Bert?" "I'll let her out a little more," repeated Chester. The car throbbed and rocked to the words. "How do you like my machine?" he added, in a comfortable voice. He felt that the mercury of emotion had mounted too far. "Mrs. Chester has named her," he proceeded. "We call her Aurora." "Hey?" "We've named the machine Aurora, I said." "'Roarer,' sir?" "Oh, well, that will do--'Roarer,' if you like. That isn't bad. It's an improvement, perhaps. By-the-way, how did you happen on my place to-night? There are a good many nearer the station; you had quite a walk." "I see a little pair o' reins an' bells in the grass alongside--such as little boys play horse with. We had one once for Batty, sir." "_Ah_! Was that it? What's your business, Dryver? You haven't told me. Do you fish?" "Winters, I make paving-stones. Summers, I raise vegetables," replied Jacob Dryver. "I'm a kind of a quarry-farmer. My woman she plants flowers for the summer folks, and Batty bunches 'em up and delivers 'em. Batty--he--God! My God! Mebbe there _ain't any Batty_--" The sentence broke. In truth, it would have been hard to find its remnants in the sudden onset of sound made by the motion of the machine.