Supperless, footsore and weary, we tumbled into the sheets vacated by the elder V’s that morning, too grateful for shelter and the softness of the feather bed to feel squeamish. We waked in the sunshine of next morning to smell coffee brewing on our bedroom stove, and hear cautious whispers of two sturdy little Deutschers tip-toeing back and forth through our room to the wash-shed beyond, stealing awed glances at the Boston ladies in their mother’s bed. In a stage whisper one called to his sister to learn where “the comb” was. She answered that Pa had taken it to San Anton’, but after some search found them “the brush” hidden near father’s notary stamp, on the bureau,--for the father was the local judge and a man much respected in the community. When the little boys departed for school, she brought us coffee in the best china, apologizing for not offering us breakfast. She explained that she was to be married in three days, and was following her family to San Anton’ for the wedding. She showed us her ring, and her trousseau, all in pink, to her joy, and told us of her fiancé, who had been a second lieutenant in France. Though she seemed a child, she had refused to marry him when he left, because she believed haste at such times imprudent. And now she was all excitement over the great event, yet not too much to show a welcome as simple as it was beautiful to the midnight intruders from Boston. As usual, our desire to pay for our lodging met a firm, almost shocked refusal. We only felt more nearly even when at El Paso we sent her something deliciously pink for her trousseau. In Texas, overnight promises are to be discounted. Or is it not, perhaps, a universal law of the “night man” to pass on no information to the “day man?” Has the order taken a vow of silence more binding and terrible than the Dominican friars? It must be so, for never in ten years’ experience with night men, have I known one to break the seal of secrecy which prevents them letting your confidence in the matter of flat tires and empty tanks go any further. Their delicacy in keeping all news of such infirmities from the ears of the day man is universal. Nor was there any exception next morning, when we visited our garage, hopeful of an early start. The exhaust pipe was still unwelded, and our spare tire still flat. Furthermore, we were half an hour in the garage before anyone thought to mention that the resources of the place were inadequate to mend the pipe. They had trusted to our divining the fact, as the day wore on,--a more tactful way of breaking the news than coming out bluntly with the truth.