Page:Weird Tales Volume 36 Number 08 (1942-11).djvu/80

"I know," I said sympathetically. "Now, I got mine—"

"It was a sweet little car, too, for those days," Phil went on. "A Model T. I was so proud of it, I used to get up nights and go out to the garage and see if it was still there. You know how a kid can be. Why, I'd pat it like you’d pat a horse. I spent every week-end shining it up and kept it brimful of gas and oil. Every few months I'd have it checked over, just in case."

By this time I was letting Phil talk himself out, though I couldn't see where he was getting. "I kept it six years," he told me. "A long time. But, you know, I was so fond of it I couldn't bear to give it up. You think I'm screwy?"

"Not at all,” I said. "I know just how—"

"Why, I felt like it was part of my family! I felt it respond. The wheel practically turned of itself in my hands. I felt that it was fond of me too. I knew it was."

"Don't get so excited, Phil," I said. "I get you. But what's this all about?"

Well, he went on to tell me the story. He was working his way, up in business, and a good appearance, including a good-looking car, was important in his line of work.

So he finally traded the Model T in, and didn't know what became of it. About that time the company he was working for moved him to Texas. And after he'd been in Texas awhile, he fell in love.

Of course a man in love never knows what has hit him. She was pretty, Phil said, and flirtatious. He was still a young man, and didn't bother to find out what she was really like. But he did notice one thing, that she was pretty much impressed by anything showy. Nice places, good clothes, big cars. So Phil got himself a new car. He didn't mind trading in the one he had at the time, because he'd never really gotten fond of it, like he'd been of the old Model T.

The new car was a Streamline Special, bright green, with white-walled tires. Phil called the girl up and said, "Look, honey, put on your best clothes. I've got a new car that'll knock your eyes out, and we're going riding.” She was thrilled pink. She came into the room all done up in furs and flowers, and said that she just couldn't wait to see the car.

Phil told her to look out the window, and stood back with a big grin waiting to hear her exclaim. But she turned to him and said, very nastily, "If you think that's a good joke, Philip Barnes, just think again. Trying to be so funny! You just get in that old rattletrap and drive away. If you think I'm going out with you in that, you're crazy."

Phil went to the window and saw that another car had come up behind the Streamline Special, where it was the first thing the girl would see. He started to laugh and say, "Why, honey, you're making a mistake."

Then he looked at her again, and saw that her pretty face didn't look pretty with the angry, sullen expression on it. And it occurred to him that she must be mighty dumb, and mighty snobbish. And he thought about the kind of wife a girl like that would make, and made a few pleasant remarks and picked up his hat and drove away in the Streamline Special. A couple of years later, he met Susan and married her, and every now and then he's taken time off to thank his lucky stars he saw through the girl in Texas before it was too late.

"But," Phil finished his story, "before I went away in the Streamline Special, I had a look at the car behind. And, Tom, it was my old Model T! I knew by the way the front fender was bent and the windshield was splintered."

"That's quite a coincidence," I told him.