THE ADVENTURES OF A SUBURBANITE
By Ellis Parker Butler
Illustrated by A. B. Phelan
Garden City New York Doubleday, Page & Company
1911
CONTENTS
IX. THE ROYAL GAME OR SEVERAL DAYS AFTER THE PIGEPISODE
XI. MY DOMESTICATED AUTOMOBILE
XIII. MILLINGTON'S MOTOR MYSTERY
I. THE PRAWLEYS
ISOBEL was born in a flat, and that was no fault of her own; but she wasborn in a flat, and reared in a flat, and married from a flat, and, fortwo years after we were married, we lived in a flat; but I am not a bornflat-dweller myself, and as soon as possible I proposed that we move tothe country. Isobel hesitated, but she hesitated so weakly that on thefirst of May we had bought the place at Westcote and moved into it.
The very day I moved into my house Millington came over and said he wasglad some one had moved in, because the last man that had lived in thehouse was afraid of automobiles, and would never take a spin with him. Hesaid he hoped I was not afraid; and when I said I was not, he immediatelyproposed that we take a little spin out to Port Lafayette as soon as I hadmy furniture straightened around. I thought it was very nice andneighbourly and unusual for a man with an automobile to begin anacquaintance that way; but I did not know Millington's automobile so wellthen as I grew to know it afterward.
I liked Millington. He was a short, Napoleon-looking man, with bulldogjaws and not very much hair, and I was glad to have him for a neighbour,particularly as my neighbour on the other side was a tall, haughty-lookingman. He leaned on the division fence and stared all the while ourfurniture was being moved in. I spoke to Millington about him, and allMillington said was: “Rolfs? Oh, he's no good! He won't ride in anautomobile.”
At first, while we were really getting settled in our house, Isobel wasbright and cheerful and seemed to have forgotten flats entirely but on thetenth of May I