“CAB, SIR?”
The company started with a cash balance of four dollars on hand. Jimmy
had been paid, although he had expressed his entire willingness to wait
a couple of weeks for half of his money. Mr. Saunders had received
his first installment, a new shoe and two new inner tubes had been
bought and they had also purchased already fifteen gallons of gasoline,
much of which had been used in trying the engine out in the garage.
A license for the car had cost ten dollars and an operator’s license
two more. They had also been obliged to buy a number of unthought of
things, such as the rubber mat and brass polish and kerosene for the
lamps and a new set of spark plugs. Paint, varnish, brushes, cylinder
oil, cup grease and graphite had been anticipated but footed up
higher than expected. Willard had put seventy-five dollars more into
the business, which, with the fifty dollars loaned by Mr. Benton,
represented a capitalization of one hundred and seventy-five dollars.
Willard’s loan and Mr. Benton’s were to be paid back from the net
profits of the enterprise.
At eleven o’clock that Tuesday morning The Ark, her brand-new
number-plates in place, was run out of the garage and, with Tom at the
wheel and Willard beside him, it chugged quietly――well, not quietly,
perhaps, but, let us say, industriously,――through Washington Street in
the direction of the station. Audelsville had six important trains a
day, three from the east and three from the west. The first of these,
the 9:01 from the west, usually brought few travelers, and the boys
had decided to inaugurate their service with the 11:34, which was the
Providence express and the favorite train for commercial travelers and
business men. Later, at 1:57, there was a second train from the east,
and after that one from the west at 2:06. Then there were no more
until the Providence train went east at 6:05. At 8:40 the last of the
half-dozen expresses passed westward.
As The Ark neared Walnut Street there came a hail and Jerry Lippit,
vaulting the front fence as the quickest means of getting into the
street, ran up. “How does she go, fellows?” he asked eagerly. “Give me
a ride, Tom, will you?”
Tom stopped the car. “Jump in,” he said. Willard, however, could not
resist a fling.
“Remember what we told you, Jerry?”
“What?” asked Jerry, as he scrambled into the rear and threw himself
luxuriously on the seat.
“Why, that you’d be begging for a ride in a week or two,” responded
Willard.
Jerry grinned. “I didn’t beg; I merely asked. Where are you going?”
“To the station,” answered Tom, starting the car again. They had not
confided their plan to anyone as yet, and it was generally supposed
that The Ark was purely a pleasure craft. They were not destined to go
very far, however, without another stop, for a little further along
Teddy Thurston, returning from a store with six preserving jars in a
wooden box, planted himself in the middle of the street.
“Let me in, Tom! Gee, but don’t it look swell? Here, Jerry, take these
things till I get in.”
“I’ll take you to the station,” said Tom, “but you may have to walk
home.”
“Walk home! Why, is it going to break down?” asked Teddy with a laugh.
“No, but――there may be others to come back.” Tom looked questioningly
at Willard.
“You fellows might as well know, I guess,” said Willard as Tom started
on. “We’re going into the livery business.”
The passengers stared. “What’s that?” asked Jerry.
“Why, we’re going to take folks from the train to the hotel, or
wherever they want to go,” Willard explained. “This is the Benton and
Morris Transportation Company, Limited; limited to one automobile,”
added Willard with a smile.
“Are you joking?” Teddy demanded.
“Not a bit of it. Ask Tom.” Tom nodded.
“Gee, but that’s a scheme!” exclaimed Jerry. “Say, you fellows might
make a lot of money that way!”
“So we thought,” responded Willard dryly. “That’s why we’re doing it,
although I suppose you chumps thought we’d bought this thing just so
that we could take you to ride.”
“You mean that I’ve got to lug this blamed box all the way back from
the station?” demanded Teddy.
“I hope so,” said Tom. “You’ll have to if we get any passengers.”
Teddy stared doubtfully and dubiously back toward home. Jerry grinned
heartlessly. “Serves you right for butting in,” he said.
“Well, I can ride home on the trolley,” sighed Teddy. Then, “Look here,
how much do you charge to bring folks back?”
“Twenty-five cents.”
Teddy put his feet on the preserving jars and settled himself
comfortably in a corner of the comfortable leather seat. “All right,”
he said magnificently, “I’ve got a quarter. You take me to my house,
fellows!”
Tom and Willard laughed, but Jerry viewed Teddy thoughtfully a minute
as they turned into River Street. Then, ingratiatingly, “You don’t
happen to have two quarters, do you, Teddy?” he asked.
“I do not,” answered Teddy promptly and coldly. “Besides, you haven’t
anything to carry and it would be wasteful and extravagant for you to
ride home. And besides that, Jerry, you owe me a dime now. And it’s
about time you paid it!”
“I’d rather do that than borrow any more from you,” returned the other
disgustedly. “You’re a tightwad.”
“Honest, I haven’t got any more,” replied Teddy. “Look.” He pulled
a leather purse from his pocket and held it open for inspection. It
held a quarter, two flattened and defaced pennies and a much begrimed
one-cent stamp. Jerry nodded.
“All right. I can walk back without hurting myself. Say, she goes like
a breeze, Tom. Let her out some more, why don’t you? How fast can she
go?”
“Eighty miles an hour,” replied Tom, winking at Willard. Jerry jeered.
“I’ll bet she can’t go thirty! How fast is she going now?”
“About twenty.”
“Let her out a little,” begged Jerry. “Just to show us!”
But Tom declined. “Some time I will, when we’ve got a good road. If I
went any faster here, you’d be shaken out.”
They were in sight of the station now, an old red brick building some
sixty feet long that had been built when the railroad first reached
Audelsville and had never been altered or improved.
“Where are you going to stop her?” asked Willard as Tom slowed up.
“I don’t know. Most any old place, I suppose. I’ll run down by the
freight shed and turn around.”
Although the train was not due for fully fifteen minutes the edge of
the platform was pretty well occupied by vehicles. Connors, the livery
man, was represented by a two-horse hack and a one-horse surrey. Mr.
Martin’s big limousine was there, too, and the chauffeur, a smart
young Irishman in a whipcord livery, looked curiously at The Ark as it
trundled by. A couple of private turn-outs completed the roster. When,
having turned the car around, Tom drew up toward the platform again
there seemed no place to stop.
“Take it around there,” suggested Jerry, pointing to a short stretch of
platform at the further end of the building which was unoccupied. But
Tom shook his head.
“That’s where the express wagons back up,” he said. “They’d be mad and
put me out. I guess we’ll have to leave her here, Will.”
“They ought to have more platform,” replied Willard. “This is a punk
old station, anyway. Look here, Tom, we ought to have a sign or
something on the car to let folks know that it’s public. We didn’t
think of that.”
“I guess there are lots of things we haven’t thought of,” sighed Tom as
he stopped the engine. “You fellows will have to get out when the train
comes in. Then, if I don’t catch anyone, you can get back again.”
“Who get out?” demanded Teddy. “Me? I’m riding back. Here’s your old
quarter now, if you can’t trust me.”
“I don’t want your quarter. If I don’t get any passengers you can ride
back for nothing, but you’ll have to get out now until I see. Folks
won’t want to get in here if it’s filled with kids.”
“Kids!” exclaimed Teddy wrathfully. “Gee, I like that! All right,
Jerry; pile out. Can I leave my box in here?”
“Put it in front,” said Willard, “under my feet. Is that the train?”
It wasn’t, however; it was just a shunting engine down in the yards.
Meanwhile the various drivers about the station were passing facetious
remarks about The Ark. Finally the man who was driving the hack called
across. “Where’d ye get it, byes?” he asked with a grin and a wink at
the Martin chauffeur.
Tom held his peace, but Jerry smiled genially and answered: “Made it
ourselves, Old Snookums. Want a ride?”
“Cut it out,” said Willard. “Don’t get fresh, Jerry.”
“You mean your great-grandmother made it,” retorted the Irishman on the
hack. “Sure, I’ve seen better ones than that in the junk yards!”
“Oh, we don’t care what you’ve seen at home,” replied Jerry flippantly.
“Is that so? You’re a pretty smart kid, aren’t you?” the driver
sneered angrily. “Mind, now, if that thing you have there scares these
horses――――”
“They look scared already,” offered Teddy. “Do they ever look around?”
A guffaw from the driver of a smart looking runabout and grins from
others added fresh fuel to the Irishman’s wrath. “For two cents I’d get
down from this box and punch your heads,” he declared, “the whole bunch
o’ ye!”
Further hostilities were interrupted by the screech of the train down
the track. The boys moved across to the platform and Tom and Willard
walked around to the front of the station. The express came to a stop
with a grinding of brakes and the passengers began to disembark. There
were not so very many to-day, perhaps a score in all. Tom and Willard,
the former at the front end of the train and the latter at the rear,
were ready for them, however.
“Automobile to all parts of town!” announced Tom. “Ride up, sir?”
A man with a sample-case in each hand viewed Tom jovially but pushed by
and transferred his luggage to the hack-driver. Several others viewed
the boy good-naturedly but passed him by. An elderly lady, however, who
was probably a trifle hard of hearing, handed a small brown bag to Tom
and followed him around the station. But when she saw the automobile
she shook her head in alarm and seized her bag again. “Sakes alive, you
don’t expect me to trust my life in one of them things, do you, young
man? Aren’t there any carriages here?”
Tom conducted her to the surrey and helped her in, while the driver
grinned from the front seat. Meanwhile Willard had fared no better, and
the boys, standing on the platform, watched the horse-drawn vehicles
rattle away well filled.
“I guess it’s a sort of――of an innovation,” observed Willard. “I
suppose we’ll have to educate them up to riding in an auto.”
“How long’s it going to take to educate them?” asked Tom
disappointedly. Willard had no answer for that. Teddy and Jerry looked
properly sympathetic but were doubtless relieved to find that they
would not have to walk home.
“What you want, Tom, is a sign, a good big one,” said Jerry. “‘Any Part
of the City for a Quarter,’ or something like that. Folks don’t know
the thing’s public, you see.”
“I told them it was,” responded Tom bitterly. “I can’t very well knock
them down and throw them in, can I?”
Teddy dug his hand in his pocket and sidled up to Tom.
“Eh? What’s this?” asked Tom.
“The quarter,” replied Teddy. “I’m going to ride back, you know.”
Tom pushed the hand away with a smile. “That’s all right, Teddy, I
don’t want your money. Climb in, fellows!”
So The Ark trundled back to the village, completing its first, and
unsuccessful, trip.