The arrival of the Chosen Trio in Queensville did not occasion the excitement in that small city that at least Mr. Gaines had anticipated. Possibly there would have been a more noticeable interest had it not been that strangers and strange cars had already become, on account of the numbers present for the races, a drug on the market. Queensville people had grown quickly accustomed to the presence of visitors. Beyond a passing glance the lumbering Roadster and its passengers received little notice, therefore. Soapy had counted so much upon the demonstration of lively interest the arrival of himself, his car and Pickton and Perth--whom he regarded as a kind of body-guard--would occasion that to attract little or none of such curious attention was a serious blow to his vanity. The fault, Mr. Gaines in his own mind assured himself, lay in the very ordinary appearance of his friends. He would have to let it be known, he concluded, that he alone was the owner of the Roadster and that he, if not those with him, was a person of quite some consequence. It was with difficulty that Pickton and Perth prevailed upon Gaines to do as they had originally agreed and look for quarters where they could prepare most of their own meals and so incur no considerable expense. This accomplished, they quite readily found a really desirable place of the character desired. It was a vacant, one-story, white cottage. Adjoining was a more pretentious house, the owner of both of which dwellings was desirous of taking in what money he might while the influx of strangers was on. For the moderate charge of five dollars for the week he gave the Trio the use of the cottage for themselves and permission to run their car into a shed in the rear of his own residence. The three lads might have been very comfortable--might have fared well in all respects, in the situation presented, had Soapy been the least bit favorably disposed toward "roughing it." With the gasoline camp stove for their cooking, ample bedding, and water and similar accommodations already in the cottage and at their disposal--why, under the same conditions the Auto Boys, or any group of really congenial young fellows, would have lived in a delightfully care-free way! But Gaines did not like the bare floor and he did not like the absence of such little conveniences as rocking chairs and electric lights. And although Mrs. Gaston, wife of the owner of the property, and a most pleasant, motherly old lady, sent over a mirror, a lamp, a small table and three kitchen chairs for the accommodation of the boys, to say nothing of a jar of canned peaches and a fresh rhubarb pie, Soapy "hoped he wasn't an object of charity just yet awhile."