"I'll trade with you, Pelty," says Chet calmly--quite calmly. "Let me look it over." He walks carefully around the auto, opens the hood and looks in. "Funny engine, isn't it? I saw one like that at the World's Fair." Pelty has the hood of Chet's machine open too and is right there with the retort courteous. "Is this an engine or a steam heater?" he asks. "What pressure does she carry?" "She never heats at all except when I run a long time on low," Chet says eagerly. "Oh, yes," says Pelty, "I never have to go into low much--" "Gosh!" Chet explodes. "When you go up Sanders Hill, they have to close two district schools for the noise." "Only time you ever heard me I was hauling you up with your broken jack-shaft," snorts Pelty. "You ought to get some iron parts for your car. Cheese has gone out of style." "You still use it for tires, I see," says Chet. "Never mind," says Pelty wrathfully. "I get mileage out of my machine; I don't drive around town and then spend two days shoveling out carbon." "Peculiar radiator you've got," says Chet, changing the subject. "Oh, I see; it's a road sprinkler. What do you get from the city for laying the dust?" "I can stop that leak in two minutes with a handful of corn meal," says Pelty, busily surveying Chet's machine. "Do you still strip a gear on this thing every time you try to back?" "Why do you carry a horn?" asks Chet. "You're wasteful; I heard your valves chattering when I was three blocks away." "I didn't hear yours chatter much last Tuesday on Main Street," snorts Pelty. "You cranked that thing long enough to grind it home by hand." "Ya-a! Talk, will you?" yells Chet earnestly. "Any man who begins carrying hot water out to his machine in a teakettle in September knows a lot about starting cars." "Well, get down to business," says Pelty. "You want to trade, you say. I don't want that mess. It's an old back-number with tin springs, glass gears and about as much compression as a bandbox. Give me five hundred dollars and throw your automobile in. I need something to tie my cow to. She'd haul away anything that was movable." "Give you five hundred dollars for that parody on a popcorn wagon?" snorts Chet. "Why, man, the poor old thing has to go into low to pull its shadow! You're delirious, Pelty. I'll tell you what I'll do. You give me a thousand dollars for my car, and I'll agree to haul that old calliope up to my barn, out of your way, and make a hen roost out of it. Come on now. It's your only chance." Shortly after this they are parted by anxious friends, and the show is over. I've known Homeburg men to give up a trip to Chicago because Chet and Pelty began to trade their autos just before train time.