II
Tish was down early to breakfast that morning and her manner forbade any mention of the night before. Aggie, however, noticed that she ate her cereal with her left hand and used her right arm only when absolutely necessary. Once before Tish had almost broken an arm cranking a car and had been driven to arnica compresses for a week; but this time we dared not suggest anything.
Shortly after breakfast she came down to the porch where Aggie and I were knitting.
"I"ve hurt my arm, Lizzie," she said. "I wish you"d come out and crank the car."
"You"d better stay at home with an arm like that," I replied stiffly.
"Very well, I"ll crank it myself."
"Where are you going?"
"To the drug store for arnica."
Bettina was not there, so I turned on Tish sharply. "I"ll go, of course," I said; "but I"ll not go without speaking my mind, Let.i.tia Carberry. By and large, I"ve stood by you for twenty-five years, and now in the weakness of your age I"m not going to leave you. But I warn you, Tish, if you touch that racing-car again, I"ll send for Charlie Sands."
"I haven"t any intention of touching it again," said Tish, meekly enough. "But I wish I could buy a second-hand racer cheap."
"What for?" Aggie demanded.
Tish looked at her with scorn. "To hold flowers on the dining-table,"
she snapped.
It being necessary, of course, to leave a chaperon with Bettina, because of the Jasper person"s habit of coming over at any hour of the day, we left Aggie with instructions to watch them both.
Tish and I drove to the drug store together, and from there to a garage for gasoline. I have never learned to say "gas" for gasoline. It seems to me as absurd as if I were to say "but" for b.u.t.ter. Considering that Aggie was quite sulky at being left, it is absurd for her to a.s.sume an air of virtue over what followed that day. Aggie was only like a lot of people--good because she was not tempted; for it was at the garage that we met Mr. Ellis.
We had stopped the engine and Tish was quarreling with the man about the price of gasoline when I saw him--a nice-looking young man in a black-and-white checked suit and a Panama hat. He came over and stood looking at Tish"s machine.
"Nice lines to that car," he said. "Built for speed, isn"t she? What do you get out of her?"
Tish heard him and turned. "Get out of her?" she said. "Bills mostly."
"Well, that"s the way with most of them," he remarked, looking steadily at Tish. "A machine"s a rich man"s toy. The only way to own one is to have it endowed like a university. But I meant speed. What can you make?"
"Never had a chance to find out," Tish said grimly. "Between nervous women in the machine and constables outside I have the twelve-miles-an- hour habit. I"m going to exchange the speedometer for a vacuum bottle."
He smiled. "I don"t think you"re fair to yourself. Mostly--if you"ll forgive me--I can tell a woman"s driving as far off as I can see the machine; but you are a very fine driver. The way you brought that car in here impressed me considerably."
"She need not pretend she crawls along the road," I said with some sarcasm. "The bills she complains of are mostly fines for speeding."
"No!" said the young man, delighted. "Good! I"m glad to hear it. So are mine!"
After that we got along famously. He had his car there--a low gray thing that looked like an armored cruiser.
"I"d like you ladies to try her," he said. "She can move, but she is as gentle as a lamb. A lady friend of mine once threaded a needle as an experiment while going sixty-five miles an hour."
"In this car?"
"In this car."
Looking back, I do not recall just how the thing started. I believe Tish expressed a desire to see the car go, and Mr. Ellis said he couldn"t let her out on the roads, but that the race-track at the fair-ground was open and if we cared to drive down there in Tish"s car he would show us her paces, as he called it.
From that to going to the race-track, and from that to Tish"s getting in beside him on the mechanician"s seat and going round once or twice, was natural. I refused; I didn"t like the look of the thing.
Tish came back with a cinder in her eye and full of enthusiasm. "It was magnificent, Lizzie," she said. "The only word for it is sublime. You see nothing. There is just the rush of the wind and the roar of the engine and a wonderful feeling of flying. Here! See if you can find this cinder."
"Won"t you try it, Miss--er--Lizzie?"
"No, thanks," I replied. "I can get all the roar and rush of wind I want in front of an electric fan, and no danger."
He stood by, looking out over the oval track while I took three cinders from Tish"s eye.
"Great track!" he said. "It"s a horse-track, of course, but it"s in bully shape--the county fair is held there and these fellows make a big feature of their horse-races. I came up here to persuade them to hold an automobile meet, but they"ve got cold feet an the proposition."
"What was the proposition?" asked Tish.
"Well," he said, "it was something like this. I"ve been turning the trick all over the country and it works like a charm. The town"s ahead in money and business, for an automobile race always brings a big crowd; the track owners make the gate money and the racing-cars get the prizes.
Everybody"s ahead. It"s a clean sport too."
"I don"t approve of racing for money," Tish said decidedly.
But Mr. Ellis shrugged his shoulders. "It"s really hardly racing for money," he explained. "The prizes cover the expenses of the racing-cars, which are heavy naturally. The cars alone cost a young fortune."
"I see," said Tish. "I hadn"t thought of it in that light. Well, why didn"t Morris Valley jump at the chance?"
He hesitated a moment before he answered. "It was my fault really," he said. "They were willing enough to have the races, but it was a matter of money. I made them a proposition to duplicate whatever prize money they offered, and in return I was to have half the gate receipts and the betting privileges."
Tish quite stiffened. "Clean sport!" she said sarcastically. "With betting privileges!"
"You don"t quite understand, dear lady," he explained. "Even in the cleanest sport we cannot prevent a man"s having an opinion and backing it with his own money. What I intended to do was to regulate it.
Regulate it."
Tish was quite mollified. "Well, of course," she said, "I suppose since it must be, it is better--er,--regulated. But why haven"t you succeeded?"
"An unfortunate thing happened just as I had the deal about to close,"
he replied, and drew a long breath. "The town had raised twenty-five hundred. I was to duplicate the amount. But just at that time a--a young brother of mine in the West got into difficulties, and I--but why go into family matters? It would have been easy enough for me to pay my part of the purse out of my share of the gate money; but the committee demands cash on the table. I haven"t got it."
Tish stood up in her car and looked out over the track.
"Twenty-five hundred dollars is a lot of money, young man."
"Not so much when you realize that the gate money will probably amount to twelve thousand."
Tish turned and surveyed the grandstand.