"Friends of mine," said he. "I go there every fall." The general rose to get his blue book. "We will look it up," said he. Bartlett stopped him. The town was not in the book. He knew, for he had tried to find it. "The maps will do," said the general, who liked to locate every town visually on the maps or in the books before he undertook to motor there. Desperate, Bartlett declared that it was not on the maps. But the general would not be daunted. They could put it on the maps themselves if they knew in which county it was, near what post-office— "We don’t want to locate it," said Bartlett, growing stern and cross of a necessity. They found the cars waiting at the steps and a small crowd to see them off and wile away the time before supper. Bartlett said, as he knew the way, he would lead. "We need only two cars. Mr. Batchelor’s car can be left until we return." "Three cars might come in handy," protested the general, who objected to every suggestion not his own, on principle. "Why?" asked Bartlett coldly. "Mr. Batchelor might become offended at us and want to ride by himself," suggested Henrietta, laughing. "Yes," agreed Billy, who, though young and charming, was sometimes lacking in that reserve that should have stamped her father’s daughter. "He and dad are fighting each other now on ’Change." Henrietta flushed, the Watermelon laughed and the general looked pained at the thought of any possible lack of congeniality. "My dear Billy," said Bartlett, "the third auto would be extremely handy for you and your tongue, at least." Billy glanced miserably from one to the other. "Why, Daddy, you told me, yesterday—" "I have told you many things," said Bartlett, "both yesterday and the day before." He took the general by the arm and gently but firmly thrust him into his car, getting in himself and taking the wheel. The young folk could ride in the tonneau and Alphonse follow in the general’s car with the luggage. The cars started down the hill in the first sweet flush of evening. Birds were going to bed with noisy upbraidings. A few cows at the pasture bars watched them pass with great, stupid, placid eyes, jaws going slowly, rhythmically, as they waited for the milking time. Now they flashed from the shadows of the woods to the open country, pastures and rolling grain fields on each hand. Now they plunged among the trees again with the drowsy twitter of birds and the clear babbling of a brook somewhere off among the ferns and brambles.