Torchy and Vee Part 32

Say, they made a great team, them two, when it came to exchangin'

persiflage. It was snappy stuff and it helped a lot towards taking my mind off Barry's jazz-style drivin'. For he sure does bear down heavy with his foot. If he plays the organ the way he runs a car I should think he'd raise the roof. And the speed he gets out of that d.i.n.ky little roadster is amazin'. Might have been all right on smooth macadam, but on this country road he had her jumpin' around on that short wheel-base like a jackrabbit with the itch. We might have been so many kernels of pop-corn being shaken over a hot fire. Barry seems to be enjoyin' every minute of it, though. He makes funny cracks, whistles, and now and then breaks into song.

"Driving a car seems to go to his head," remarks Miss McLeod. "It appears to make him wild." "It does," says Barry. "For----

I'm a wild prairie flower, I grow wilder hour by hour.

n.o.body cares to cultivate me, I'm wild. Whe-e-e-e!"

He warbles that for the next five minutes, until Miss McLeod suggests that it's time for lunch.

"Let's stop at the next shady place we come to," says she.

"Oh, bother!" says Barry. "Just when Adelbaran is striking his best pace. Why not take our nourishment on the fly?"

So she gets out the sandwiches and the thermos bottle and we take it that way. Rather than let Barry take either hand off the wheel she feeds him herself, even if he does complain about gettin' his countenance smeared up with mustard some. Anyway, we didn't lose any time if we did spill more or less of the coffee.

"Cheerie oh!" sings out Barry, readin' a sign board. "Only twenty miles more!"

"But such up-and-downy miles!" says Ann.

She was dead right about that, for the further we got into New Hamps.h.i.+re the more the road looked like it had been built by a roller coaster fan.

I always had a notion this was a small state, from the way it looks on the map, but I'll bet if it could be rolled flat once it would spread out near as big as Texas. All we did was to climb up and up and then slide down and down. Generally at the bottom was one of these covered wooden bridges, like a hay barn with both ends knocked out, and the way we'd roar through those was enough to make you think you was goin'

forward with a barrage. Then just ahead would be another long hill windin' up to the top of the world.

"Only five miles to go!" sings out Barry at last, along about three o'clock. "Now, Ann, it's nearly time for you to be saying a few kind words to Adelbaran and me."

"I'll be thinking them up," says Ann.

Perhaps she did. I can't say. For it was somewhere in the middle of the second or third hill after this that the little roadster began to splutter and cough like it had swallowed a monkey wrench.

"Come, come now, Adelbaran!" says Barry coaxin'. "Don't go misbehaving at this late hour. Remember the women singing in the tents, the palm waving over the----"

"Barry," says Ann, "something has gone wrong with your engine."

"Say not so," says Barry, steppin' on the accelerator careless.

"But I'm sure!" says Ann. "There!"

With a final cough the thing has quit cold. All Barry can seem to do though is to jiggle the spark and look surprised. "Why--why, that's odd!" says he.

"Yes, but sitting here isn't going to help," says Miss McLeod. "Get out and see what's happened. Come on."

And while she's liftin' the hood and pawin' around among the wires and things, with Barry lookin' on puzzled and helpless, I sort of wanders about inspectin' Adelbaran curious. It's some relic, all right, and my guess is that it was a.s.sembled by a cross-eyed mechanic from choice pieces he rescued off'm a sc.r.a.p heap. All of a sudden I notices something peculiar.

"Say, folks," I calls out, "where's the gas tank on this chariot?"

"Why, it's on the back," says Barry.

"Well, it ain't now," says I. "It's gone."

"Gone!" echoes Ann. "The gas tank? Oh, that can't be possible."

"Take a look," says I.

And sure enough, when they comes around all they can find is the rusted straps that held it in place and the feed pipe twisted off short.

"Ha, ha!" says Barry. "How utterly absurd. I've rattled off a lot of things before, but never the gas tank. And I suppose that's rather important to have."

"Quite," says Ann. "One doesn't go motoring nowadays without one."

"But--but what's to be done?" says Barry. "I simply must get to Birch Crest in time to play the wedding march. The ceremony is to be at 4:30, you know, and here we are----"

"I should say," breaks in Ann, "that we'd better find that tank and see if we can't screw it on or something. It can't be far behind, of course."

That seemed sensible enough. So we spreads out across the road and goes scoutin' down the hill. Didn't seem likely a thing as big as that could hide itself completely, even if it had bounced off into the bushes. But we got clear to the bottom without findin' so much as its track. On we goes, pawin' through the bushes, scoutin' the ditches on both sides, and peekin' behind trees.

"Come, little tankey, come to your master," calls Barry persuasive. Then he tries whistlin' for it.

"Well, we're sure to find it somewhere down that next hill," says Ann.

"Probably near that water-break where you gave us such a hard jolt."

But we didn't. In fact, we scouted back over the road for nearly a mile with no signs of the bloomin' thing.

"Then we've missed it," finally decides Ann. "Of course no car could run this far without gas."

"You don't know Adelbaran," says Barry. "He's quite used to running without things. I've trained him to do it."

"Barry, this is no time to be funny," says she. "Now you take the left side going back. I'll bet you overlooked it."

Well, we made a regular drag-net on the return trip, scourin' the bushes for twenty feet on either side, but no tank turns up.

"Looks like we were stranded," says I, as we fetches up at the roadster once more.

Miss Ann McLeod, though, ain't one to give up easy. Besides, she's had all that efficiency trainin'.

"I don't suppose you carry such a thing as an emergency can of gasoline anywhere in the car?" she asks Barry.

"I'm sure I don't know," says he. "The fellow in the garage insisted on selling me a lot of stuff once. It's all stowed under the seat."

"Let's see," says she, liftin' out the cus.h.i.+on. "Why yes, here it is--a whole quart. And a little funnel, too. Now if we could pour enough into the feed pipe to fill the carburetor----"

It was a grand little scheme, only the funnel end was too big to fit into the feed pipe.

"Any tire tape?" demands Ann.

Barry thought there was, but we couldn't find it. Then he remembered he'd used it to wrap the handle of his tennis racquet once.

"I got some gum," says I.