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Schiller had smiled and said, "Oh, I forgot. They were all caught and executed."

It was hardly a pleasant way to bid one goodbye, Smith thought as he drove through the night. It could shake a man, until you considered that it had been wartime, and the eight Germans probably had not been so thoroughly conditioned as he, Palmer, Masters, and Johnson.

The speedometer crept past sixty and Palmer, sitting next to him, said, "Hey, Stan, slow down. Florida law is sixty by day but only fifty by night. Remember?" Palmer was the most cautious of the four.

Smith slowed, although he was confident that there were no cops on the road at this hour. Anyway, back in Little Chicago they had even schooled him not to panic when stopped by the police. It had been a hard thing to learn, but he was ready to test it.

In St. Augustine Smith pulled into an all-night filling station and said, "Fill 'er up with high test."

The attendant, alert despite the hour, filled the tank and checked under the hood. He whistled and said, "Say, lucky I looked. Your battery water's way down." He immediately filled the battery with distilled water, without instructions. Then he wiped the windshield. Smith was impressed with this service and efficiency. He wondered whether all travellers received such service, or whether it was only because the Buick was new and large. He realized that there was still much to learn about America. He had not been told everything.