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 national car—for every day in the year. And there's one more thing about the religion and ritual of the car."

"Oh at least that!" said Oliver. "But what is it, Professor?"

"It's a thing," I said, "that knocks into a cocked hat His Excellency's private argument for privately nullifying the Eighteenth Amendment. Of course His Excellency didn't invent the argument—I mean that hoary old bore about personal liberty and private conscience and so forth. All the 'wet' newspapers pull it out of the Pyramid of Cheops seven times a week. All the 'wet' city newspapers count the German and Italian and Slavic noses in their constituencies and then get off that tedious drip about the 'puritan minority' and its attempt to bully these honest European consciences, which, being European, are free from sanctimonious scruples against befuddling their wits with liquor."

"Quo me rapis, tui plenum—where, O Mid-Western Bacchus," cried Oliver, "where dost thou drag me at the tail of thy car? I feel the thong going through my heels and the rope running up to the axle of your Ford. Crank up! Drag on!"

"Why, don't you see, Excellency," I persisted,