"Really, I don't know. Which is the better?" The girl's voice was
curiously clear.
Milt passed Claire Boltwood as though he did not see her; stood at the
rear of the garage kicking at the tires of a car, his back to her. Over
and over he was grumbling, "If I just knew one girl like that---- Like a
picture. Like--like a silver vase on a blue cloth!"
Ben Sittka did not talk to the girl while he inserted the tube in the
spare casing. Only, in the triumphant moment when the parted ends of the
steel rim snapped back together, he piped, "Going far?"
"Yes, rather. To Seattle."
Milt stared at the cobweb-grayed window. "Now I know what I was planning
to do. I'm going to Seattle," he said.
The girl was gone at twenty-nine minutes after twelve. At twenty-nine
and a half minutes after, Milt remarked to Ben Sittka, "I'm going to
take a trip. Uh? Now don't ask questions. You take charge of the garage
until you hear from me. Get somebody to help you. G'-by."
He drove his Teal bug out of the garage. At thirty-two minutes after
twelve he was in his room, packing his wicker suitcase by the method of
throwing things in and stamping on the case till it closed. In it he
had absolutely all of his toilet refinements and wardrobe except the
important portion already in use. They consisted, according to faithful
detailed report, of four extra pairs of thick yellow and white cotton
socks; two shirts, five collars, five handkerchiefs; a pair of
surprisingly vain dancing pumps; high tan laced boots; three suits of
cheap cotton underclothes; his Sunday suit, which was dead black in
color, and unimaginative in cut; four ties; a fagged toothbrush, a comb
and hairbrush, a razor, a strop, shaving soap in a mug; a not very clean
towel; and nothing else whatever.
To this he added his entire library and private picture gallery,
consisting of Ivanhoe, Ben-Hur, his father's copy of Byron, a wireless
manual, and the 1916 edition of Motor Construction and Repairing: the
art collection, one colored Sunday supplement picture of a princess
lunching in a Provençe courtyard, and a half-tone of Colonel Paul Beck
landing in an early military biplane. Under this last, in a pencil
scrawl now blurred to grayness, Milt had once written, "This what Ill be
aviator."
What he was to wear was a piercing trouble. Till eleven minutes past
twelve that day he had not cared. People accepted his overalls at
anything except a dance, and at the dances he was the only one who wore
pumps. But in his discovery of Claire Boltwood he had perceived that
dressing is an art. Before he had packed, he had unhappily pawed at the
prized black suit. It had become stupid. "Undertaker!" he growled.