stop at all the filling stations or comfort stations or whatever they are called?”
“Lodges and Tourist Camps,” the Colonel said. “Those others we stop at; but not for the night.”
“I want so much for us to roll up to a comfort station and plank down my money and tell them to fill her up and check the oil, Mac, the way it is in American books or in the films.”
“That’s a filling station.”
“Then what is a comfort station?”
“Where you go, you know—”
“Oh,” the girl said and blushed. “I’m sorry. I want to learn American so much. But I suppose I shall say barbarous things the way you do sometimes in Italian.”
“It is an easy language. The further West you go the straighter and the easier it becomes.”
The Gran Maestro brought the breakfast and the odor of it, although it did not spread through the room, due to the silver covers on the dishes, came to them steady and as broiled bacon and kidneys, with the dark lusterless smell of grilled mushrooms added.
“It looks lovely,” the girl said. “Thank you very much, Gran Maestro. Should I talk American?” she asked the Colonel. She extended her hand to the Gran Maestro lightly, and fastly, so that it darted as a rapier does, and said, “Put it there, Pal. This grub is tops.”
The Gran Maestro said, “Thank you, my lady.”
“Should I have said chow instead of grub?” the girl asked the Colonel.
“They are really interchangeable.”
