I don’t think that either Willard or Tom showed up very brilliantly that day at studies. Their minds were much too full of the automobile. At recess they stole away from the crowd and sat side by side on the granite coping beyond the library and talked it all over again, and could scarcely wait for school to end so that they could get the money and seal the bargain with Mr. Saunders. Tom became so interested that he quite forgot to finish his luncheon, and the bell found him still possessed of two perfectly good bananas and a piece of chocolate layer cake. He managed the cake on the way back, however, and consigned the bananas to his pockets for future reference. At three-thirty the bargain was completed. Willard’s father, whose cabinet shop was but two blocks distant, was on hand and he and the carriage man soon had the papers fixed up. Willard engaged to pay the sum of twenty dollars monthly until the full amount of one hundred and twenty-five dollars had been paid. The interest was to be at five per cent., and the title of the car remained with Mr. Saunders until the final payment had been made. Tom handed over his fifty dollars in cash, Willard and his father signed the papers and the car, to all intents and purposes, was theirs! Mr. Saunders had demurred at first at having to include storage of the Bentons’ buggy in his part of the bargain, but Willard had been firm and in the end the carriage man had consented. Mr. Morris went back to his shop and Tom and Willard hurried down Main Street and around to the rear of the hotel, to where Connors’ stables stood. There a bargain was soon made. The liveryman was to go to Saunders’ shop with a stout rope and haul the automobile over to the Bentons’ stable. At first he wanted a dollar and a quarter, but the boys beat him down to seventy-five cents. From there they hurried around to Tom’s house and Tom found the stable key. After they had run the buggy out to the yard they looked over the quarters. The carriage room was not very large, but it would serve the purpose well enough. Tom pointed out that they could build a bench under the window at the side and after a while make their own repairs. Fortunately the stable had been wired for electricity a few years before and Jimmy Brennan would have no difficulty finding plenty of light for his work. Some boxes and a decrepit wheelbarrow were moved into the box-stall out of the way and Tom found an old stable broom and swept the floor fairly clean. “We’ll have to put up some shelves, I suppose, for oil and grease and things,” said Tom. “And where can we keep the gasoline if we get a barrel full at a time?” “Dad says you’ll have to keep it out of doors and away from buildings,” replied Willard. “Let’s have a look.”