Wallace Irwin

“ So I drove splendidly down to the financial district, sitting wretchedly upright in my car. Perhaps this would be my last ride in my own equipage. I resolved to sell it at once and have it over with. I easily understood how hard it was for Andalusia. Our removal from the smart set of a small suburban town to the society of the metropolis had necessitated our making superhuman efforts to keep up with incomes vastly beyond our own. Success was just beginning to crown our four years' struggle. ”

“ So you see we can't very well put the car up to-morrow."
"Armand, you're a coward!" said Andalusia.
Poor woman! In her mind she had firmly planted the idea that I was taking the Hays to Jersey merely as a pretext to hang on to the car a little longer.
As I have said, I am essentially a business man. Strategic position is everything to me. Leonidas Hay is one of those deaf people who hear very well in a moving vehicle. ”

“ Of course, as we are too proud to reside in the slums, it is our civic duty to spend $2,000 a year more for rent than we can afford. Our dinners are sketchy imitations of the Feast of Lucullus, and when we dine with friends we give a general effect of fabulous wealth—at least to those who do not know our business rating or where we get our clothes. ”

“ Thus lay our business, crippled and moaning at our feet. Liabilities like hungry giants were devouring our trembling little assets, while dividends, like wicked fairies, were turning into assessments. ”

“ I am sure the car increased our credit. In the aristocracy of Rome there was a predatory class called Knights, or Equites, its members thus distinguished because they were each able to afford one or more horses. Why should we not establish in modern America a knightly caste to be called Motorites, composed of persons able to afford one or more horse-power? ”

“ I saw Carbon & Coggs, automobile sales agents. They found me a client, and I made an engagement to bring my car around on a Friday afternoon. The faithful Rasmussen was waiting with the machine in front of my office at two o'clock on that day. With heavy heart I told him to drive around to Carbon & Coggs's. They told me their man wanted my car very much. ”

“ For an automobile class we certainly have. Let him who would deny this go as far as he likes.
Well, a crisis walked into our happy, abnormal lives one day. It knocked at a directors' meeting where I was presiding in the absence of the president. You see, I am an officer in the Trans-Universal Starch Co. Our affairs up to that fatal morning had been enjoyably precarious. We had been living for months on the hope that Mr. Leonidas Hay, an eccentric manufacturer of rotary mops, would invest in 100,000 shares of our capital stock. Mr. ”