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Page 5
"I thank you, no," repeated Peabody. "I must go with my
sister."
As the car glided forward Brother Sam sighed heavily.
"My! but he's got a mean disposition," he said. "He has quite
spoiled MY day."
He chuckled wickedly, but Winthrop pretended not to hear, and
his sister maintained an expression of utter dejection.
But to maintain an expression of utter dejection is very
difficult when the sun is shining, when you are flying at the
rate of forty miles an hour, and when in the cars you pass
foolish youths wave Yale flags at you, and take advantage of
the day to cry: "Three cheers for the girl in the blue hat!"
And to entirely remove the last trace of the gloom that
Peabody had forced upon them, it was necessary only for a tire
to burst. Of course for this effort, the tire chose the
coldest and most fiercely windswept portion of the Pelham
Road, where from the broad waters of the Sound pneumonia and
the grip raced rampant, and where to the touch a steel wrench
was not to be distinguished from a piece of ice. But before
the wheels had ceased to complain, Winthrop and Fred were out
of their fur coats, down on their knees, and jacking up the
axle.
"On an expedition of this sort," said Brother Sam, "whatever
happens, take it as a joke. Fortunately," he explained, "I
don't understand fixing inner tubes, so I will get out and
smoke. I have noticed that when a car breaks down, there is
always one man who paces up and down the road and smokes. His
hope is to fool passing cars into thinking that the people in
his car stopped to admire the view."
Recognizing the annual football match as intended solely to
replenish the town coffers, the thrifty townsfolk of Rye, with
bicycles and red flags, were, as usual, and regardless of the
speed at which it moved, levying tribute on every second car
that entered their hospitable boundaries. But before the
Scarlet Car reached Rye, small boys of the town, possessed of
a sporting spirit, or of an inherited instinct for graft, were
waiting to give a noisy notice of the ambush. And so,
fore-warned, the Scarlet Car crawled up the main street of Rye
as demurely as a baby-carriage, and then, having safely
reached a point directly in front of the police station, with
a loud and ostentatious report, blew up another tire.
"Well," said Sam crossly, "they can't arrest US for
speeding."
"Whatever happens," said his sister, "take it as a joke."
Two miles outside of Stamford, Brother Sam burst into open
mutiny.
"Every car in the United States has passed us," he declared.
"We won't get there, at this rate, till the end of the first
half. Hit her up, can't you, Billy?"
"She seems to have an illness," said Winthrop unhappily. "I
think I'd save time if I stopped now and fixed her."
Shamefacedly Fred and he hid themselves under the body of the
car, and a sound of hammering and stentorian breathing
followed. Of them all that was visible was four feet beating
a tattoo on the road. Miss Forbes got out Winthrop's camera,
and took a snap-shot of the scene.
"I will call it," she said, "The Idle Rich."
Brother Sam gazed morosely in the direction of New Haven.
They had halted within fifty yards of the railroad tracks, and
as each special train, loaded with happy enthusiasts, raced
past them he groaned.
"The only one of us that showed any common sense was Ernest,"
he declared, "and you turned him down. I am going to take a
trolley to Stamford, and the first train to New Haven."
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