A Diana of the Garage

By THOMAS L. MASSON

HE first I saw of Bill was that part of him that lay limp and inactive on the ground, stretched out beyond the lines of the huge touring car that he was tinkering. Then I lowered my shoulders a trifle and in the shadow of the machine I caught a glimpse of a piebald face and noted: item, a pair of intense blue eyes peering anxiously upward; item, a large mouth, twisted into sympathetic exertion with the muscles of his arm as he turned a wrench spasmodically; item, rivulets of perspiration that cut their ways over the daubs of machine oil on his cheeks. Bill was lying on a grease-soaked rug to protect himself from the earth. I mentally and precipitately dubbed it a prayer rug, but afterwards, when I knew Bill better, I changed the name to swear rug—a name that has stuck to it.

My car had been cutting up for a couple of days, backing and filling, coughing, spluttering, missing, lying down on me in unexpected places, pounding, hesitating, dragging, pulling back, overheating, stopping on hills, and, to be forcible and correct and quote what Bill said about it afterwards, "acting like hell." I had changed my spark plugs, adjusted my coil, tightened up my bearings and wrist pin, fussed with my carburetor, and done everything else that a six months' motor-car experience had taught me—all useless. I was a new resident in Bloomfield and had been limping about on the road for the better part of a week, not daring to trust alien bands—for even in six months I had learned many lessons—when some friendly chap with an auto like mine told me about Bill.

"Go to Bill Stavey's," he said, "and he'll fix you up. He's the only honest machinist in the county, and a good fellow besides, if you take him right." And so here I was.

After a while, Bill wriggled himself out from under the machine, and rose slowly up in the air to the length of about six feet.

"Good day, sir," he said, glancing at me quite impersonally and casually and unconcernedly, just as if he had expected I would be there—as if the only possibility of his expressing any surprise would have been if I hadn't been there. Then he called to a boy who was washing a runabout inside the garage and ordered him to put back the rug and the multifarious tools with which it was covered, while he stood wiping his hands with cotton waste—wonderful large hands they were, the fingers with square ends and nails that looked like polished sheet iron.

I waited for Bill to speak first. It is a highly important matter, this initial approach to a keeper of a garage, one that should be prayed over and thoughtfully and devoutly considered beforehand, for upon his good will and attention often depends one's road comfort for weeks, and to appear too hurried, too impatient, may produce an aftermath of continuous trouble. And so I waited for Bill to speak first. He wasn't looking at me particularly because he had already "sized me up" from the shadows below. He had, I made no doubt, placed me where I belonged.

"What's your trouble?" he said at last, turning toward me. I felt this at once to be a high compliment. He had done that intangible but nevertheless important thing, he had coupled me with my car. With that fine courtesy which afterwards I came to value so highly in him, he had assumed that I and my machine were one. If I had been a duffer, or a "dub" as he would have said, he wouldn't have done this—he would have treated us as things apart. But because he didn't, I was glad, and I trusted Bill from that moment.

"I wish I knew," I said. "I'm missing."

Bill glanced at my car—a Teutonic glance that seemed to lift it fairly off its tires and put it somewhere, in the proper mental pigeonhole where it belonged. In that glance he had seen it all—differentials, ball bearings, shafts, cones, radiation—everything.

He pushed up the top of the tool box of the car he had been working on and stuffed into it the cotton waste.

"Will you leave her?" he asked.

This was hardly to my liking. To be in a strange land without my habit of locomotion; to walk basely, or patronize the trolleys, seemed to me in the nature of a cruel invalidism. But in Bill's face I saw the inevitable.

"I shall have to, of course," I replied. "But what's the chance?"

Bill stroked his chin thoughtfully with his great black hand.

"Well," he said, "there's Simpson, waiting for parts—liable to be here any minute—I've got to get him out; there's Skoonmaker, he'll be round at five, cursin' like a pirate because I ain't got him finished; and here's Doc' Pollard in a terrible sweat with a broken spindle on his pump that I've got to make. Of course they ain't got any spindles at the agent's, which means sending to the factory, and that won't do. Then I've got to take Smith's body off to get at his high clutch— How will day after to-morrow do?"

"It will have to do," I said sadly.

Bill straightened out and smiled.

"Well, you might come round to-morrow afternoon," he §aid. "You're a new customer. When you've been coming here long enough I can lie to you better. You've been in the game some time, haven't you?" glancing at my car the second time.

"About six months."

"It's a great game." He motioned me to follow him. He went out into the rear of the garage where there was a shed and a blow fire. Off to one side was the battered body of a touring car.

"Look at that," said Bill, kicking the scarred surface with his foot. "That's the way they do it—that's one of them things supposed to be aluminum—sold for aluminum—it's nothing but tin."

"What must the inside of such a car be?" I ventured.

"Soft as mush—the whole thing—and sells for $3,000."

The next afternoon I strolled around to Stavey's garage again—on foot. It was a rectangular building made of mortar with an asphalt floor—huge sliding doors and no sign of any kind—for Bill Stavey was so well known that there was no necessity to advertise himself. Indeed the motley array of motor cars ranged in front told the story.

"Is Mr. Stavey in?" I asked the boy.

"Yes, sir, just inside."

Inside the garage I stepped. A small stationary gas engine in one comer was chugging energetically, and turning a system of wheels that extended to the remotest parts of the garage. An indescribable mixture of machines, tools, tires, defunct motor cycles, and broken parts was everywhere. And near a huge lathe, keenly watching a cylinder of iron as it revolved under his fingers, was Bill. He turned off the belt for a moment and lighting a match on a sign above his head that said "No Smoking," he started a stogy.

Nodding at me without saying a word, he turned on his belt again. The sharp tool he was working with peeled off the iron as if it had been so much soap, and a glittering shaving fell on the floor.

"Sorry your car ain't ready," Bill said at last. "Simpson's parts came. He was standing over me with a club," he added with a smile, as he turned off the power.

"You haven't looked at it then?"

"I had her out on the road."

"What do you think?"

Bill shook his head.

"Can't tell," he said. "She's raising hell for fair. Maybe your valves need grinding." He took me over to my car, backed disconsolately up into a corner. To me it had never before seemed so utterly useless, bedraggled, woe-begone. Bill lifted up the engine hood.

"I haven't had a chance to time her yet," he said, "but"

At this moment there was a sense of bustle somewhere—as of something wholly alien; a pervading presence had suddenly come into this little world of machinery where everything revolved about Bill. A boy came forward and touched him on the arm. He dropped my hood instantly and skillfully and without a word strode out through the door. Instinctively I followed.

In front of the door was a small touring runabout, and sitting in it imperiously was a girl.

She had red hair, red cheeks, a slightly tilted nose, and a waist that, even if there hadn't been as much strenuous attention put upon it as was obvious, would have still been small and dainty enough for any man to love at first sight. She had tossed back her veil and was talking even before I came out.

"Mr. Stavey," she said, "I don't know what's the matter with my car. It's acting something horrible. Really now I can't get up any kind of a grade. You know you fixed the carburetor, but I don't believe you fixed it right, you were in such a terrible hurry anyway. Can't you stop and do it now?" she asked anxiously. "Of course you must, you know, because I have a friend coming and I've simply got to have it."

My heart sank as Bill stepped forward. Every moment was precious to me also. And I thought sympathetically of all the other poor devils with their cars standing around waiting to be fixed. My eye lingered on a sign in a far corner, "First Come First Served." At that moment it was only a hollow mockery.

She had jumped lightly onto the ground as she talked, and Bill was leaning over into the car. He put on the switch and turned over the engine while he listened for the contact buzz.

Then he faced around with a whimsical look. "You've been monkeying with that coil," he asserted.

"I just gave it a turn."

Bill smiled.

"You mustn't do it," he said. "You leave that coil alone. The trouble ain't there—it's in your mixture. That carburetor needs a new cork. The shellac's come off. Come! We'll run her round the block."

In an instant they were off. The car was going lame—there was no doubt about that—but allowing for this, I thought they never would come back.

But when they did come back, Bill was too much occupied to do more than utter a brief apology. All he whispered was, "You see how it is—I've got to make good with her. But come round to-morrow and I'll have you fixed up."

Somehow, as I stood in Stavey's garage the next day at the same hour I felt on more familiar terms with Bill than ever. I had guessed his secret.

"I've found your trouble," he said as I entered. "The commutator was dragging on the pump chain. It made a short circuit."

He started up the car. It went like a shot.

"Nothing the matter with that," he shouted above the roar of the cylinders.

"I should say not," I cried, delighted.

In an instant my impatience had vanished. For no one can conceive, who has not experienced it, the delight of an automobilist who has found out what the matter is.

"Have a smoke," I said, pulling out the kind that sells downtown three for a dollar.

Bill looked at its pale shape indifferently, and shook his head.

"Don't waste 'em on me," he said. "They're too good. I can't taste 'em at all. Here's something"—he took out a black stogy—"that I buy for three cents each-pretty good, too! Don't light that match here. We just had a spill," and he pointed to a dark spot on the ground where the gasoline had spread.

As the days went by, Bill and I came to know each other better and better—not stridently and vociferously, but more or less silently as primitive men have learned each other, working together since the world began.

Bill was interested in my machinery from the start—no artist was ever more conscientious than he. And I was interested in his—that is, in his mental machinery.

I was also interested in Miss Caston, who came to the garage at frequent intervals. I learned that she was the daughter of a prosperous local grocer. Also that she was quite popular.

As for Bill's secret—that came gradually. One Sunday afternoon, as we sat in his dim little office, smoking our respective brands, there was a long expressive silence. Previously we had been talking politics, socialism, religion. Bill was not erudite, but he had thought.

Then he turned suddenly to me and said, jerking his thumb toward the door, "It beats hell how some women can get around a man, don't it?"

Experiences of my own led me to acquiesce.

"I was thinking," said Bill, "how much trade I've actually lost through—well, you know."

I nodded.

"That's why I kinder took to you from the start," he went on. "You had a right to get mad and skin out—that day when she came in, bound to get fixed up right off the bat, while a half a dozen of my best customers was cursing me in their hearts. It wasn't justice! It wasn't right. But, good heavens, I couldn't help it."

"A woman expects too much," I replied, warmed even then by the recollection. "In the first place, no woman has any business running a car"

"That's dead right."

"But as long as she's in the game she ought to take her chances with the rest."

"Sure!"

"But of course you couldn't help it—in her case."

Bill slapped his leg.

"Couldn't for a minute!" he said. "Ain't she a peach? Mighty few girls have got a chassis like that."

"That's so," said I with enthusiasm.

Then I squared round.

"Look here, Bill," I said. "Are you stuck on that girl?"

"I sure am."

"Then why don't you go in and marry her? You've got a good thing here."

"Yes," he said, "I'm clearing up over two thousand a year, and I own the ranch. But, you see, a girl like that—well, she don't understand. She's all right, mind you. But she's too ambitious. I called on her the other night."

At the recollection Bill's form shook.

"I got one of them swell dress suits—had it cut out and made to order for me—cost me forty dollars. I want you to see it. It's great—silk-lined—fits me! Hell and blazes! how it fits me. I looked and I guess I felt like one of them head waiters at the Waldorf. And I had some cards printed, with my own name on 'em."

"Printed!" I exclaimed. "Why didn't you consult me. Bill! that is no way to do. You're taking care of my car and it's my business to look after your social prestige. You ought to have had 'em engraved. Look here." And I showed him one of my own.

Bill shook his head.

"That's all right for you," he said, "but not for me. Printing's good enough for me. I'm not in your class, and I know it."

"Well, what happened?"

"There was a swell geezer there from town. One of these pretty boys. He was handing her out a line of choice talk that would have made you sick. Now, mind you, I know the real thing when I see it. But this chap was a Willie boy all right, 'Mr. Jenks,' says she, 'this is Mr. Stavey.' Mr. Jenks held up his flipper about three feet in the air above his necktie and I grabbed it. Ha!"

Bill sat back convulsed.

"I give him a grip he'll remember," he roared. "Regular Masons, Elks, and Hose Company Number Three. My, oh, my!

"Then we sat and chinned. After a while Jenks got talking about the bubble business. 'My chum,' says he, 'owns a French car—saved up and bought it—and I'm going to get one myself next year,' says he. I knew right off he was a 'next-year' dub. I've got a few of 'em on my books now—geezers with second-hand machines always on the blink, always kicking about their bills, and always getting French cars 'next year.'

"Well, to get back to Willie boy Jenks. He meandered on while she and I listened. 'How is your car actin'?' says he. 'Isn't it giving you lots of trouble?' says he. 'I'll be glad to go over it for you,' says he. 'A woman by herself has no show,' says he. 'You ought to get a good man to take care of it,' says he. Then he saw her looking at my hands, and the game was all off. 'I'm doing the best I can,' says I. 'Mr. Stavey is in the business,' says she. 'He keeps me going,' says she. And all the time I felt—well, sort of sad at her confidence in me."

Bill puffed more furiously than ever. I pushed open the window wider.

"You see," he went on, "I have felt guilty at times, because—well, I fixed that car of hers so she'd have to come in often, so's I could see her—not to break down exactly, but it's easy to change your mixture and have the car get to missing and clouding up the plug, and there you are, only I never charged her for the time. That would have been rubbing it in, wouldn't it?"

At this moment the telephone bell rang—a long steady peal. Bill wearily reached for the earpiece.

"I knew it," he muttered. "There's no rest for the weary. Hello! Miss Caston. Oh, yes. Where? Union Street? All right. You just wait. I'll be right out."

Bill put up the 'phone and looked at me.

"She's madder'n hell," he said. "Broken down on Union Street. Wouldn't that jar you! Now, a man understands the game, and don't kick. But you can't make a woman see. I'm in for it."

"Well, I wish you luck," I said as I rose to go and Bill moved out into the garage.

"Won't you come with me?" he asked, as if he hated to have me leave him. "I want you to take a spin in my whizzer, anyway."

In a far corner of the garage he pulled and twisted out the most dilapidated little soap box of a motor car I had ever seen. The patches on the tires made them look like sections of a geological map. The wire spokes in the wheels were twisted and bent. The faded cushions were covered with grease spots and worn like a spavined horse. There was just room for two.

"Where did you get it?" I exclaimed.

Bill grinned.

"I put it together myself," he replied. "I picked up a little DeDion engine—the only original baby I guess imported into this country—and I got this body off a chap that failed. She's a beaut, ain't she? But she goes like a streak."

He twisted the crank. There was a rattlety bang and a noise like four men shaking down furnaces in a boiler factory and we were off on the way to Union Street at a fifteen-mile clip.

I was sorry for Bill when he faced her. She was mad clear through. And her red hair somehow didn't seem to make matters any better.

"Mr. Stavey," she said, ignoring me, "I've broken down, right here where everybody can see me. And I want you to understand it's all your fault. You're responsible, and I'll hold you for it."

Bill smiled as much as he could.

"They're uncertain things," he said, taking off the seat of the runabout.

"That's all right. But you haven't taken good care of it. Mr. Jenks told me, and he knows."

Bill stopped and turned suddenly. There was a new look in his eyes.

"What in thunder does he know about it?" he said. "Jenks! Ha! That's great."

"Well, I guess he knows a good deal more than you."

"That's good. I'm glad to hear that."

"You know who he is, of course."

"No."

She looked at him scornfully.

"Don't you know," she said, "that Mr. Jenks is one of the greatest drivers in the country? Didn't he win the great elimination races last year driving a 120 horse-power Darracq? Wasn't he second this year in the Continental races? You mean to say you've never heard of him?"

Jenks! Good heavens, I thought to myself, could this be the Jenks, the young dare-devil that we had been reading about in the papers? Her Jenks!

It was a hard blow, a sudden blow, but Bill took it quietly.

"Is that right?" he asked.

"Yes—of course. My brother used to go to school with him. I thought you knew it the other night. He's small and slender, but oh, my, he's got nerve! He says the garage men are all alike and he looked over my car the next day and said the mixture wasn't right—that you'd been doctoring the carburetor and giving her too much gas. And he knows! It's mean of you, Mr. Stavey, to cause me to break down like this. It's—humiliating."

Bill was busy.

"Well," he said quietly, "your coupling pins have sheared off on the crank shaft this time. I can back her, but what's the use? I guess, Miss Gaston, I'll have to tow her home."

"All right, Mr. Stavey. I'll have to let you. Then I'll ride home in a trolley. Only—I wish Mr. Jenks was here!"

An hour later, when once more we stood in the cluttered garage. Bill, who had been silent all along, shook his head, half to himself, as he coiled up the rope that had been used to tow Miss Gaston's runabout in.

"Game's up," he said sorrowfully. "I'm the dub. I swear I thought I knew the real thing. But I've got a lot to learn after all."

"But, look here! old man," I said, my gathering indignation getting the best of me, "why didn't you protest? Why did you let her stand there and abuse you? It was rank injustice!"

There was a quaver in Bill's voice.

"No, it wasn't," he said. "Of course I couldn't help those pins shearing off. That wasn't on me. But I did monkey with that car a little, just to keep her coming here, and I ought to have got it in the neck. You see I couldn't explain. She wouldn't have believed me, anyway. It pays to be honest, even with a girl you're gone on, don't it? If I'd been square I might stand a chance with Jenks. But now it's all off. She don't understand it, of course—she don't know the real reason why I did it."

Somehow I was silent. It was coming over me that herein was a great principle.

Bill pulled a stogy out of his pocket, and savagely bit it nearly in two.

"And what's more," he said, looking me straight in the eye, "I'll be damned if she ever will!"