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Page 34
"WHAT will you do?" repeated Winthrop.
Miss Forbes, apparently as much interested in Mr. Schwab's
answer as Winthrop, leaned forward. Winthrop raised his voice
above the whir of flying wheels, the rushing wind and
scattering pebbles.
"I asked you into this car," he shouted, "because I meant to
keep you in it until I had you where you couldn't do any
mischief. I told you I'd give you something better than the
Journal would give you, and I am going to give you a happy
day in the country. We're now on our way to this lady's
house. You are my guest, and you can play golf, and bridge,
and the piano, and eat and drink until the polls close, and
after that you can go to the devil. If you jump out at this
speed, you will break your neck. And, if I have to slow up
for anything, and you try to get away, I'll go after you--it
doesn't matter where it is--and break every bone in your
body."
"Yah! you can't!" shrieked Mr. Schwab. "You can't do it!"
The madness of the flying engines had got upon his nerves.
Their poison was surging in his veins. He knew he had only to
touch his elbow against the elbow of Winthrop, and he could
throw the three of them into eternity. He was travelling on
air, uplifted, defiant, carried beyond himself.
"I can't do what?" asked Winthrop.
The words reached Schwab from an immeasurable distance, as
from another planet, a calm, humdrum planet on which events
moved in commonplace, orderly array. Without a jar, with no
transition stage, instead of hurtling through space, Mr.
Schwab found himself luxuriously seated in a cushioned chair,
motionless, at the side of a steep bank. For a mile before
him stretched an empty road. And, beside him in the car, with
arms folded calmly on the wheel there glared at him a grim,
alert young man.
"I can't do what?" growled the young man.
A feeling of great loneliness fell upon "Izzy" Schwab. Where
were now those officers, who in the police courts were at his
beck and call? Where the numbered houses, the passing surface
cars, the sweating multitudes of Eighth Avenue? In all the
world he was alone, alone on an empty country road, with a
grim, alert young man.
"When I asked you how you knew my name," said the young man, "I
thought you knew me as having won some races in Florida last
winter. This is the car that won. I thought maybe you might
have heard of me when I was captain of a football team at--a
university. If you have any idea that you can jump from this
car and not be killed, or, that I cannot pound you into a
pulp, let me prove to you you're wrong--now. We're quite
alone. Do you wish to get down?"
"No," shrieked Schwab, "I won't!" He turned appealingly to the
young lady. "You're a witness," he cried. "If he assaults
me, he's liable. I haven't done nothing."
"We're near Yonkers," said the young man, "and if you try to
take advantage of my having to go slow through the town, you
know now what will happen to you."
Mr. Schwab having instantly planned on reaching Yonkers, to
leap from the car into the arms of the village constable, with
suspicious alacrity, assented. The young man regarded him
doubtfully.
"I'm afraid I'll have to show you," said the young man. He
laid two fingers on Mr. Schwab's wrist; looking at him, as he
did so, steadily and thoughtfully, like a physician feeling a
pulse. Mr. Schwab screamed. When he had seen policemen twist
steel nippers on the wrists of prisoners, he had thought, when
the prisoners shrieked and writhed, they were acting.
He now knew they were not.
"Now, will you promise?" demanded the grim young man.
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