I stifled my natural suspicion--for I did not know the man--and pulled out a bill; but Ernie smiled and backed away. “No, no,” he said pleasantly. “No; I like to tinker. Don’t let Forgan know. That’s all.” I was a little dazed, would have insisted. But in the face of his persistent, good-natured refusal, I perceived that I had been mistaken. The man was not a type; he was an individual. And thereafter we became, as I have suggested, friends. If there was a grease-cup missing when he washed the car, I was sure to find it replaced. If my brakes needed adjusting, he found time to attend to them. A surface-cut on a tire that passed under his hands was apt to be filled with cement and composition and firmly closed. I eventually discovered that this habit was no secret to Forgan. “He thinks we ain’t wise,” the foreman said to me. “But I’ve spotted him at it. Long as he does them things on his own time, why should we kick? We don’t want to soak our customers. We’re human, ain’t we? Besides, it makes ’em good-natured. And Ernie likes to think he’s putting something over. So I don’t let on.” But it was not that Ernie liked to think he was putting something over; it was simply, as the man had told me, that he liked to tinker. I was not alone in his favor. Others also benefited. He was a friend of all the world. II I missed him one day when I drove in and left the car. Forgan laughed at my question. “Yep,” he said. “Gone. Got a vacation. Guy came in here--one of these movie men. Spotted Ernie, and said he wanted him for a picture. Said he looked the part. He’ll be back in a month or so. ’Less he gets the bug.” I was interested, and a little amused at the thought of Ernie on the film; and I hoped he would come back at the end of the stipulated month, hoped he would, in fact, escape the bug. As matters chanced, it was two weeks over the allotted month before I had occasion to take my car to the service-station. I drove in on my way to town in the morning, and Forgan slid back the doors for me, and Ernie’s familiar smile, a little more alert than of old, greeted me from the washing-floor. “Just a wash and a polish,” I told Forgan, as I rolled past him at the door; and he nodded and said, “Give her to Ernie.” I maneuvered in the narrow passage and headed in to the washing-floor; but Ernie held up a warning hand, smiling and nodding. “Cut her,” he called. “Over this side.” And as I obeyed, wondering what it was all about, I saw that he cocked a wise eye toward the ceiling. Under his guidance, I brought the car into the position he desired, and then alighted and asked: “What’s the idea, Ernie! Used to be any old place would do.” Ernie chuckled. “Look a’ there,” he admonished, and pointed upward. “There’s an arrangement I’ve fixed up. Just shut up your windows and you’ll see.” Mine is a sedan; I obediently closed windows and doors.