Some persons spend their surplus on works of art; some spend it on Italian gardens and pergolas; there are those who sink it in golf, and the narrator has heard of those who expended it on charity. None of these forms of getting away with money appealed to Araminta and him. As soon as it was ascertained that the automobile was practicable and would not cost a king's ransom, the narrator determined to devote his savings to the purchase of one. Araminta and the narrator live in a suburban town; she because she loves Nature, and the narrator because he loves Araminta. They have been married for five years. The narrator is a bank clerk in New York, and morning and night he goes through the monotony of railway travel, and for one who is forbidden to use his eyes on the train and who does not play cards, it is monotony, for in the morning his friends are either playing cards or else reading their papers.
