Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 271, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 November 1916 — Trying [ARTICLE]

Trying

"I have the highest admiration fpr Jugly,’’ remarked the man who was buying the motor supplies, “but the next time he goes on the market for a second-hand automobile and asks me to assist in the purchase, our <riendship will be strained, If not liroken.” “You don’t mean to tell me that you assftted Jugly in buying that asthmatic, neurotic vehicle he trffes to drive through the streets!’’ asked the motor supply dealer. “To assist him in buying a direlict like that was a fine way to show your friendshipP* “Oh, I feel guilty enough about the part 1 played in the deal! Every time 1 see him sitting dejectedly on the grimy floor of his garage with the parts of that so called automobile spread around him I want to beg his forgiveness. Then I remember. “When Jugly told me he wanted to invest in a second-hand car some time ago, I told him of several first-class machines my friends had to sell, andthat any one of them would pass for new cars on sight. He wouldn’t listen to me. He had heard of a machine out somewhere that the owner was selling ‘on account of sickness.’ I learned later that the man was ‘sick’ of looking at it. Jugly said the machine was only 17 years old, and had run not a bit over 175,750 miles. We went out there and the owner took us out for a demonstration. The car went through all the gyrations of a locoed cow pony. It bucked and backed up, stood on its rear wheels and skidded sideways. It would get beyond control, working up to seven miles an hour on ‘high,’ then go so ‘dead’ that all the cranking in the world wouldn’t start It till it was ready to go of its own accord. "AU this time I was shouting in Jug ly’s ear not to buy that machine. 1 told him that I, as an expert, knew It to have but a few more miles to run before it fell apart by the roadside. It was no use. The owner of the wreck had more influence with Jugly than 1, his lifelong friend. Jugly seemed hypnotized. The owner said the machine needed but fifteen minutes’ adjusting —any child could do it —and it would throw dust in the face of a late model. “By this time we were out on the boulevard, and all my friends were passing in {heir machines and giving me to laugh. Crowds gathered around to view the relic when we stopped, and traffic policemen threatened to arrest us when it threw up clouds of blue smoke and gave out cannon-like reports from its cracked muffler. It was a period of agony for me with the worst yet to come.” “That doesn’t seem possible.’’ “When the owner’s arms ached from holding the palsied steering wheel he asked me to drive for a block or two. That is just what I was doing when my fiancee saw me. I had told her that I was going to buy a machine, so she naturally thought that she was looking at my purchase. I haven’t been able to communicate with her since. I want to tell her that I have a nice roadster ahd that I induced Jugly, for spite, to buy that oldest specimen of auto in existence."