Even after he found out that I did not care to rent a touring car for sightseeing purposes at five dollars an hour he was quite affable and accommodating; but my opening question appeared to puzzle him just as in the case of the depot agent. “Mister,” he said frankly, “I'm sorry, but I don't seem to make you. What's this thing you is looking for? Tell me over again slow.” Really the ignorance of these villagers regarding one of their principal products--a product lying, so to speak, at their very doors and written about constantly in the public prints--was ludicrous. It would have been laughable if it had not been deplorable. I saw that I could not indulge in general trade terms. I must be painfully explicit and simple. “What I am seeking”--I said it very slowly and very distinctly--“is a farm that has been deserted, so to speak--one that has outlived its usefulness as a farm proper, and everything like that!” “Oh,” he says, “now I get you! Why didn't you say that in the first place? The place you're looking for is the old Parham place, out here on the post road about a mile. August'll take good care of you--that's his specialty.” “August?” I inquired. “August who?” “August Weinstopper--the guy who runs it,” he explained. “You must have known August if you lived long in New York. He used to be the steward at that big hotel at Broadway and Forty-second; that was before he came up here and opened up the old Parham place as an automobile roadhouse. He's cleaning up about a thousand a month. Some class to that mantrap! They've got an orchestra, and nothing but vintage goods on the wine card, and dancing at all hours. Any night you'll see forty or fifty big cars rolling up there, bringing swell dames and-” I judge he saw by my expression that he was on a totally wrong tack, because he stopped short. “Say, mister,” he said, “I guess you'd better step into the post-office here--next door--and tell your troubles to Miss Plummer. She knows everything that's going on round here--and she ought to, too, seeing as she gets first chance at all the circulars and postal cards that come in. Besides, I gotter be changing that gasoline sign--gas has went up two cents a gallon more.” Miss Plummer was sorting mail when I appeared at her wicket. She was one of those elderly, spinsterish-looking, kittenish females who seem in an intense state of surprise all the time. Her eyebrows arched like croquet wickets and her mouth made O's before she uttered them. “Name, please?” she said twitteringly. I told her. “Ah,” she said in the thrilled tone of one who is watching a Fourth of July skyrocket explode in midair. The news seemed to please her. “And the initials, please?” “The initials are of no consequence. I do not expect any mail,” I said. “I want merely to ask you a question.” “Indeed!” she said coyly. She said it as though I had just given her a handsome remembrance, and she cocked her head on one side like a bird--like a hen-bird.