Evening star., 1925-11-27
Are YOU q half way taker?

Are you n half way taker?
This sort OF motorist be 1t known
is the kind gentleman who halls you
as you are waiting for the bus OF
street car and asks you to get in.
Being polite, in turn, you naturally
get in. You don't know how to get
out of getting in.
But you know as well as you can
know anything that the kind gentle
man is going to dump you off hall
mile or more from your office, saying
This is as far as l 60"
He is a halfway taker.
He never. by any turn OF human
kindness, takes you all the way. Not
he! Evidently he feels as If he has
done his duty by the world when he
smilinGly invited you into his car.
The joke of it is that you would
much prefer to have ridden down
town in the bus, the nice Warm bus
filled with congenial passengers. many
of whom you know, the others the sort
of folk one likes to be win.
1t is a slightly cool morning when
your halfway taker comes along. You
see him slow down his machine, and
hear him call, Want to go DOWN."
Not having any ready excuse on
your tongue, you curse yourself men
tally for a coward, and dutifully climb
into the front seat, smearing the dirt
off the leather with your freshly
cleaned topcoat.
You shiver in the open car as II
picks up speed. Visions Of yourself
in the warm bus. chatting to good old
Harold, come to mind as you slip
downtown with the frost congealins
on your whskers.
Darn it," you exclaim--to your.
self "Why on earth didn't I think up
some good yarn to hand him?"
X X
IT am going as far as the Treasury,
your unknown friend declares, waving
his left arm in an alarming fashion
Evidently he is one of those traffic
nuts who faithfully pokes out his
hand to warn other motorists when
he knows there is not another car
withip six blocks.
rs that all right?" inquiries the man
swinging his arm up and down like
a semaphore.
"Sure!" you reply, cursing yourself
for an idiot all the time. The walk
will do me good" Probably it will
A nice walk of almost a mile no doubt
will be as good as doctors preScrip-
ton. There is one sure thing-by the
time you get downtown you will be so
cold you will need the walk to avert
freezing to death. That is the way
you feel about it. Everything has
some good point, If you look for it
long enough. You glow slightly over
this discovery of your incorrigible
optimism. Maybe the boys at the Of
flee will stop calling you an "old
Crouch"
Suddenly you look at your kind
neighbor, name unknown, who is driv-
ing like mad down the long sweep of
upper Massachusetts avenue. Every
Is seconds he shoots out his left hand
which you notice is very large and
red. as If trying to slap an invisible
foe in the face.
Why on earth does he take his
hand off that wheel so much? The
car careens on it's way. Suddenly an
awful thought smites you. Suppose
the man is insane? What do you
know about him?
plan to kidnap you, take you to his
fellows in some out-of-the-way spot
and truss you up for ransom, This
horrible autosuggestion occupies you
for three blocks, until your common
sense informs you that no one on earth
would have the slightest desire to kid
nap you.
What for, indeed!
All this time your car, under the
guidance of your unknown neighbor