"She bungled, yes. She was to have made it very clear that by winning you would escape my alleged wrath--or rather, your father would. I knew you would row hard for Baliol, but I thought you might row superhumanly for your father." "Well," Jim Deacon flushed, then glanced proudly at his father-- "you were right, sir--I would." PROFESSOR TODD'S USED CAR BY L. H. ROBBINS From _Everybody's Magazine_ He was a meek little man with sagging frame, dim lamps and feeble ignition. Anxiously he pressed the salesman to tell him which of us used cars in the wareroom was the slowest and safest. The salesman laid his hand upon me and declared soberly: "You can't possibly go wrong on this one, Mr. Todd." To a red-haired boy he called, "Willie, drive Mr. Todd out for a lesson." We ran to the park and stopped beside a lawn. "Take the wheel," said Willie. Mr. Todd demurred. "Let me watch you awhile," he pleaded. "You see, I'm new at this sort of thing. In mechanical matters I am helpless. I might run somebody down or crash into a tree. I--I don't feel quite up to it to-day, so just let me ride around with you and get used to the--the motion, as it were." "All you need is nerve," Willie replied. "The quickest way for you to get nerve is to grab hold here and, as it were, drive." "Driving, they say, _does_ give a man self-confidence," our passenger observed tremulously. "Quite recently I saw an illustration of it. I saw an automobilist slap his wife's face while traveling thirty miles an hour." "They will get careless," said Willie. Mr. Todd clasped the wheel with quivering hands and braced himself for the ordeal. "Set her in low till her speed's up," Willie directed. "Then wiggle her into high." It was too mechanical for Mr. Todd. Willie translated with scornful particularity. Under our pupil's diffident manipulation we began to romp through the park at the rate of one mile an hour. Willie fretted. "Shoot her some gas," said he. "Give it to her. Don't be a-scared." He pulled down the throttle-lever himself. My sudden roaring was mingled with frightened outcries from Todd. "Stop! Wait a minute! Whoa! Help!" Fortunately for my radiator, the lamp-post into which he steered me was poorly rooted. He looked at the wreckage of the glass globe on the grass, and declared he had taken as much of the theory of motoring as he could absorb in one session. "This is the only lesson I can give you free," said Willie. "You'd better keep on while the learning's cheap." To free education and to compulsory education Mr. Todd pronounced himself opposed. Cramming was harmful to the student; the elective method was the only humane one. He put off the evil hour by engaging Willie as a private tutor for the remaining afternoons of the month.