The Abyssinian Prince

He had planned to stop at a hotel, to wash up, and to gallop to Claire.
But--well--wouldn't it maybe be better to leave the car at a public
garage, so the Boltwoods could get it when they wanted to? He'd better
"just kind of look around before he tackled the watch-dog."

It was the public garage which finally crushed him. It was a garage of
enameled brick and colored tiles, with a plate-glass-enclosed office in
which worked young men clad as the angels. One of them wore a carnation,
Milt noted.

"Huh! I'll write back and tell Ben Sittka that hereafter he's to wear
his best-Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes and a milkweed blossom when he
comes down to work at the Red Trail Garage!"

Milt drove up the brick incline into a room thousands of miles long,
with millions of new and recently polished cars standing in lines as
straight as a running-board. He begged of a high-nosed colored
functionary--not in khaki overalls but in maroon livery--"Where'll I put
this boat?"

The Abyssinian prince gave him a check, and in a tone of extreme lack of
personal interest snapped, "Take it down the aisle to the elevator."

Milt had followed the natural lines of traffic into the city; he had
spoken to no one; the prince's snort was his welcome to Seattle.

Meekly he drove past the cars so ebon and silvery, so smug and strong,
that they would have regarded a Teal bug as an insult. Another attendant
waved him into the elevator, and Milt tried not to look surprised when
the car started, not forward, but upward, as though it had turned into
an aeroplane.