“What can I do for you?” he ast me.
“Nothin’,” says I. “Just show me where my car is and I’ll get it out o’ your way.”
“What car is it?” he says.
“A new Swift Six,” says I.
“I don’t remember seein’ it,” he says.
“Oh, yes. That’s the boat that Jerry took out.”
“What for?” I says. “He’s got no right to go joy-ridin’ in my machine.”
“He ain’t joy-ridin’,” says the guy. “He took it out for a test. Somethin’ was poundin’.”
“Nothin’ was poundin’ when I brought it in this mornin’,” I says.
“You’re new at the game, ain’t you?” he says.
“Yes,” says I.
“Well, then, you probably wouldn’t notice when somethin’ was wrong,” he says.
“When’s he comin’ back with it?” says I.
“He’d ought to be back now,” says the guy.
So I waited till ten minutes to eight and then in come Jerry with my Swift Six. She was hittin’ on all but five cylinders.
“What have you done to my car?” I says.
“Me? Nothin’,” he says. “But it’s in pretty bad shape. They’s a lot o’ carbon and she needs grease and the right front wheel acts like it had a defective bearin’.”
“That’s ridiculous,” says I. “The car’s only a couple o’ weeks old.”
“I don’t care how old it is,” says Jerry. “An automobile don’t have to be old to get somethin’ the matter with it, no more’n a person. Look at babies. Just because they’re only babies, that don’t prevent ’em from havin’ colic, does it?”
“I won’t argue with you,” says I. “What I want to know is how soon you can get this machine fixed up?”
“By tomorrow mornin’,” says Jerry.
“That won’t do,” I says. “I got to have it by midnight tonight.”
“Well, I guess we can let you have it then,” he says, “but we’ll have to hustle.”
“I’ll drop in at midnight,” says I, and beat it home. I’d told him midnight so’s to be sure she’d be ready by eleven o’clock Sunday mornin’.
I went back right after breakfast. Still another fella was on the floor.
“I come for that new Swift Six,” I says.
“I haven’t seen nothin’ of it,” says he.
“You’re a fine bunch,” says I. “I brought the car in here yesterday mornin’ with nothin’ the matter with it and now they been workin’ on it over twenty-four hours and lost it besides.”
“Oh,” says this guy, “is that the car that we had to recharge the batteries on it?”
“No,” says I, “this here car’s pretty near new.”
“It’s the same one,” says the fella. “The batteries was dead and we’re rechargin’ ’em now.”
“Let’s see the car you’re talkin’ about,” I says, and he took me back and pointed it out to me.
It was mine.
“Can you tell me,” I says, “how it comes that the batteries can die on a brand new car?”
“Sure,” he says. “The batteries is supposed to charge themself while you run, and you ain’t used the car enough to let ’em do it.”
“How long before they’ll be recharged?” I ast him.
“About three hours,” says he.
“I can’t wait,” says I.
“O’ course,” he says, “you could take it now, the way it is, but you ought to bring it back and let us finish the batteries.”
“That’s what I’ll do,” says I. “You can turn the juice off.”
So he disconnected the charger or whatever you call it, and I jumped in the seat to back her out. I pushed the starter down, and down she stayed.
“See!” he says. “She’s as dead as Napoleon.”
“What am I goin’ to do?” I ast him. “I got to drive out on the South Side.”
“They’s nothin’ to prevent you from crankin’ her,” he says. “I’ll turn it over if you want me to.”
“That’s mighty friendly of you,” I says. So he turned it over and sure enough, the engine begun to hum. I put her in reverse and pressed down the accelerator. They wasn’t no response. I pressed down harder and harder and harder, and finally all the way down. Nothin’ doin’. Then I took my foot off, but the pedal stayed down.
“Here!” I says. “What’s happened now?”
The guy leaned over and looked at the pedal.
“Turn your dash light on,” he says.
Well, I turned the dash light switch without no results. This scared me into tryin’ the whole lightin’ system. Nowheres did I get a rise.
“You’re in tough luck,” says the mechanical genius. “Your starter won’t work and your accelerator won’t work and you got no lights. Looks like the South Side trip was off.”
“You think it does?” says I. “Well, listen: I’m goin’ to make it if I have to be towed. And between now and eleven o’clock, you got to have this car so’s it’ll run.”
“I can’t promise,” he says. “They’s a lot of other rush jobs round here.”
“They ain’t no job that’s rusher than this,” says I.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he says. “I’ll do the best I can. Nobody can do better than that.”
“You certainly pull some original remarks,” says I. “Now, get busy! Because I’m comin’ back here at eleven o’clock, and if you ain’t ready for me they’ll be trouble.”
“If they wasn’t no trouble,” he says, “they wouldn’t be no garages.”
“Good!” says I. “You can pull cute ones when you try.”
I and eleven o’clock arrived at the same time.
“All set!” says the fella when he seen me come in. “I’ve even got the starter workin’.”
“How about the accelerator?” says I.
“It’s OK,” he says. “It was just disconnected.”
I climbed in, or started to, and come within a ace o’ breakin’ a leg or somethin’. The floor board was missin’ and they wasn’t nothin’ but Nature and machinery between me and the ground. I happened to be hangin’ on to the seat and the dash with my hands or it’d of been good night.
“Well!” says the mechanic, lookin’ astounded. “Somebody’s ran off with your floor board. Oh, yes, I remember,” he says. “I took it out when I was monkeyin’ with the clutch.”
“Why was you monkeyin’ with the clutch?”
