"Now, listen, Bob," said George (my name _is_ Bob, and I see no reason why, simply because I am writing a piece about myself, I should make believe that my name is Stuart or Will, especially as it is right there in black and white at the head of the story. This assuming new names on the part of authors is a literary affectation which ought to be done away with once and for all). "Now, listen, Bob," said George, very quietly and very distinctly, "the only thing for you to do if you are going to learn to run this thing, is to get right down to brass tacks and _run_ it, and the sooner you try it, the better." "Oh, you practical guys!" I said. "Nothing will do but you must always be getting down to brass tacks. It's men like you who are driving all the poetry out of the world." "You flatter me," said George, reaching bruskly across me as if he were after the salt and pepper, and adjusting a couple of dingbats on the steering wheel. "This here is the spark, and this is the throttle. The throttle governs the gas supply, and the spark regulates the--eh, well, it regulates the spark." "What won't these scientists think up next?" I marveled. "It's uncanny, that's what it is--uncanny." "_Now_, then: hold your foot on the clutch pedal and keep her in neutral, while you shove your hand lever forward as far as it will go. _That's_ right!... That's fine ... 'way forward ... now ... _that's_ right ... that's fine!" I was so encouraged by the way things seemed to be going that I took all my feet away from all the things they were stepping on, and sighed: "Let's rest a minute, old man. I'm all of a tremble. It's much easier than I thought, but I'd rather take it stage by stage than to dash right off the first thing." The trouble seemed to be that, in lifting my feet, I had discouraged the motor, which sighed and stopped functioning, giving the car a playful shake, like an Erie local stopping at Babbitt (N.J.) on signal. So George said that, in the future, no matter how well things seemed to be going, never to give in to my emotions again, but keep right on working, even though it looked as if I were in danger of becoming an expert driver in three minutes. There is always something to learn, he said. Then he got out and cranked the engine. We went through the same process again, only I kept my foot on the vox humana pedal until I had crammed it 'way into fortissimo. Then suddenly a wonderful thing happened. The whole thing--car, engine, George, and I--began to move, all together. It was a big moment in my life. I could see the headlines in the evening papers: YOUNG SCRIBE OVERCOMES NATURAL LAWS Causes Auto to Move by Pushing Pedal