"Yeah, I smell it too,'' he says and keeps on pumping. And he pumps and pumps and jumps and pumps and I don't know what more to say. Finally, he's really winded and sweat's running down all over his face and he can't pump anymore, and so I suggest taking out the plugs to dry them off and air out the cylinders while we go back for another beer.

Oh my God no! He doesn't want to get into all that stuff.

"All what stuff?''

"Oh, getting out the tools and all that stuff. There's no reason why it shouldn't start. It's a brand-new machine and I'm following the instructions perfectly. See, it's right on full choke like they say.''

"Full choke!''

"That's what the instructions say.''

"That's for when it's cold!''

"Well, we've been in there for a half an hour at least,'' he says.

It kind of shakes me up. "This is a hot day, John,'' I say. "And they take longer than that to cool off even on a freezing day.''

He scratches his head. "Well, why don't they tell you that in the instructions?'' He opens the choke and on the second kick it starts. "I guess that was it,'' he says cheerfully.

And the very next day we were out near the same area and it happened again. This time I was determined not to say a word, and when my wife urged me to go over and help him I shook my head. I told her that until he had a real felt need he was just going to resent help, so we went over and sat in the shade and waited.

I noticed he was being superpolite to Sylvia while he pumped away, meaning he was furious, and she was looking over with a kind of "Ye gods!'' look. If he had asked any single question I would have been over in a second to diagnose it, but he wouldn't. It must have been fifteen minutes before he got it started.

Later we were drinking beer again over at Lake Minnetonka and everybody was talking around the table, but he was silent and I could see he was really tied up in knots inside.