“Even the Rolls Royce is a six,” Charley said. “Those Europeans don’t make eights. What do you need eight cylinders for?”

“Good god. The Rolls Royce a six.”

All her life Fay had wanted to ride in a Rolls Royce. She had seen one once, parked at the curb by a fancy restaurant in San Francisco. The three of us, she and I and Charley, walked all around it.

“That’s a terrific car,” Charley said, and proceeded to give us details on how it worked. I couldn’t have cared less. If I had my choice I’d like a Thunderbird or a Corvette. Fay listened to him as we walked on, and I could see that she wasn’t too interested either. Something had distressed her.

“They’re so flashy-looking,” she said. “I always thought of a Rolls as a classic-looking car. Like a World War One military sedan. An officers’ car.”

Consider to yourself if you’ve ever actually seen a new Rolls. They’re small, metallic, streamlined but also chunky. Heavy-looking. Like some of the Jaguar saloon models, only more impressive. British streamlining, if you get the picture. Personally I wouldn’t have one on a bet, and I could see that Fay was wrestling with the same reaction. This one had a silver-blue finish, with lots of chrome. In fact the whole car had a polished look, and this appealed to Charley, who liked metal and not wood or plastic.

“There’s a real car,” he said. Obviously he could see that he wasn’t getting across to either of us; all he could do was repeat himself in his customary clumsy way. Besides his gutter words he had the vocabulary of a six year old, just a few words to cover everything. “That’s a car,” he said finally, as we got to the house we had come to San Francisco to visit. “But it would look out of place in Petaluma.”

“Especially parked in the lot at your plant,” I said.

Fay said, “What a waste it would be—putting all that money into a car. Twelve thousand dollars.”

“Hell, I could pick up one for a lot less,” Charley said. “I know the guy who runs the British Motor Car agency down here.”