GONE
Along the straight, even way sped the Buick roadster at about
thirty-five miles an hour, for automobile inspectors have a partiality
for violating the speed laws.
In the car were Inspector Snagg and Inspector Ketchum. They were, in
fact, returning to Newburgh after assisting in quite a haul at a likely
spot where highways intersected a little north of the scene of the last
recorded harrowing adventures. There, each passing motorist had been
held up for his driver’s license upon showing which he had been suffered
to go his way unmolested. The car came to a stop before the single gate
which blocked the right half of the road.
“What’s the matter here? Who put this gate down?” demanded Inspector
Snagg. “Whose car is that there?”
“It isn’t exactly a car,” said Townsend quietly, “but it’s mine.”
“You put that gate down? What’s that kid doing up there?”
“He seems to be standing there,” said Townsend.
“I climbed up to reconnoiter and the gate fell down,” Pee-wee shouted.
“The word _reconnoiter_ was too heavy for the gate, it fell down,” said
Townsend.
The two inspectors were very domineering and self-sufficient. The power
of asking questions peremptorily in rapid-fire fashion is quickly
learned by detectives and such. An impression of brisk efficiency is
thus produced.
Pee-wee and Townsend watched the inspectors push the gate up as far as
they could, which was at an angle of about forty-five degrees, and there
it stayed. There is no doubt at all that Townsend was apprehensive. As
for Pee-wee, he looked down like a true knight from his tower, severe,
fearless, frowning. The Italian woman made some concession to the tense
situation by craning her neck. The goat preserved a calm and innocent
demeanor.
“You kids want to look out how you play with crossing gates,” Inspector
Ketchum said; “you want to keep your hands off such things. You’d better
come down out of there,” he added, addressing Pee-wee.
“You’re so smart, let’s hear you tell me how?” shouted our young hero.
“What’s the matter with your face?” the inspector asked.
“I made ointment and put on it on account of getting stung by wasps,”
said Pee-wee. “I foiled a lot of them.”
“Who’s driving that car?” the other inspector demanded.
“Nobody’s driving it just now,” said Townsend. “I _was_ driving it.”
“Oh, you were, were you?”
“Yes, he was, was he,” shouted Pee-wee from his place of safety. “And he
can make it sing, too, and say good-bye and everything, and we’re going
to camp in it.”
“Is—_that_—so?” said Inspector Ketchum. “Youse kids is driving it, huh?”
“Only we’re out of gas,” Pee-wee shouted.
“You seem to have plenty of hot air,” said Inspector Snagg. “Which one
of youse is drivin’? Youse must think the public highways is a
slaughter-house.”
“I was driving,” said Townsend.
“Yere?” said Inspector Snagg sarcastically. “How old are you?”
“He’s seventeen and he’s a patrol leader,” Pee-wee volunteered.
“I’m seventeen,” said Townsend.
“Yere? Got a special, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes,” said Townsend, extremely apprehensive; for it was perfectly
apparent that the inspector was speaking in irony and did not believe
him.
“Let’s take a look,” said Inspector Snagg, holding out his hand in
ironical encouragement.
“I—I—eh—”
“Oh, you haven’t got it, huh?”
“What do you want to see it for?” Pee-wee shouted. “It looks just the
same as all the rest of them, they all look alike. It’s just like all
the rest of them you saw up the road. What’s the use of looking at it
when one’s just like another? Gee whiz, do you call that having sense?”
To this clever argument the inspectors made no reply. Probably they felt
that it was unanswerable. But Inspector Snagg continued to hold out his
hand to Townsend in an insolently patient and skeptical way. “Come on,
Kid,” he said.
“I just lost my license card,” said Townsend; “it was eaten by that
goat.”
“_Yere_, is _that so_?”
“Sure it’s so,” screamed Pee-wee, “that shows how much you know about
scouts if you think they lie, because I can prove he ate it because he
ate eleven dollars, too, and a time-table, you can ask that woman—so
now!”
The woman seemed to sense the situation for she emerged from her torpor
long enough to pour forth a torrent of gibberish which seemed to be
somewhat in the nature of self-defense and an elaborate exoneration of
the goat. It concluded with a glowing peroration, seemingly, to the
effect that Townsend had no right to hang his coat on her woven wire
spring.
“Tell her you’ll buy the goat and then you’ll have the license card,”
called Pee-wee.
“How can I buy the goat when the goat’s got all my money?” Townsend
asked.
“Give her your card and tell her you’ll pay her on the way back,”
shouted Pee-wee.
“The goat has my cards, too,” said Townsend.
“Well, yer ain’t got it then?” sneered Inspector Snagg.
“Sure he’s got it but it’s in the goat,” screamed Pee-wee.
“Well, you’re a couple of smart, fresh youngsters,” said Inspector
Snagg, sweeping aside all argument and explanation. “Now how much gas
have you got in that car?”
“Oh, a little bit,” said Townsend.
“Can’t you listen to an argument?” roared Pee-wee.
“Your pal can tell that to the judge,” called the inspector. “He can
tell him the goat story. Then if the judge says it’s all right fer kids
ter be racin’ along the public highways without—”
“You were coming along thirty-five miles an hour yourselves,” shouted
Pee-wee; “I’m not afraid of you!”
“You stay where you are, Kid,” said Townsend in a tone of kindness
mingled with disgust. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back or I’ll send somebody.
Take it easy.”
He cranked his flivver and it gave Pee-wee a feeling of isolation and
homesickness to hear the old engine chugging away and the car shaking
and quaking in every bone and joint like a victim of palsy.
“Ride on ahead,” said Inspector Snagg as he and his companion stepped
into the official car. “Some nerve, huh?” Pee-wee heard one of them say.
The flivver with its lone driver looked funny as it rattled along the
road with the trim roadster behind it. Pee-wee had never had this view
of it before. Being without a top or a back it had a queer look, unlike
other cars. It seemed like some hapless hoodlum being taken in for
throwing stones. Poor, friendly, faithful, dilapidated, ramshackle
little flivver! It made Pee-wee despise all Buicks to see that official
car, so smug and trim, following after.
The Ford, being topless and backless, Townsend’s form was conspicuous,
sitting upright on the front seat as the little cavalcade receded.
Pee-wee felt as if the Ford, like Keekie Joe of Barrel Alley, was a
member of his patrol. He realized now, as he had not realized before,
what a joyous institution was formed by Townsend and his flivver.
The twilight was again spreading its dusky coverlet over the country and
Pee-wee felt very strange and lonesome.