“Oh, Harry,” she said to her husband, “I turned Jack down.”
Then she went on to tell him that her brother had been in the Officers’ Reserve camp out to Fort Sheridan, and he’d just called up to say that they’d asked for waivers on him.
“Well,” I said, “I don’t see what you’re sad over. Did you want him to get killed?”
“Oh, no,” she sniffled. “But it’ll break his heart. He was crazy to give himself to the country. He passed the physical test and everything—and now he can’t go.”
“It’s too bad,” I said, “that there’s no vacancies in the regular army. Otherwise he might horn in there as a private. Haven’t you no friends with a political pull?”
“Let’s not talk about it, or the little girl’s trip will be spoiled,” said Cross. “Come on and see what you think of our flat.”
Well, this tour of examination didn’t take much time. There was four rooms all told, and Jess Willard could have hung his head out of the front window and washed his feet in the kitchen sink. If a man coming in had tripped on the hall rug, he’d be in bed.
After an argument about whether Nan was taking enough wraps, and whether Harry should have the pajamas with the feet in them or the ones that allowed his toe-ums to run amuck at night, we squeezed out and started downstairs. Then Nan wasn’t sure she’d locked the door.
“What’s the difference?” I asked her. “A very thin burglar might manage to scrape in between the furniture, but Houdini’s the only one that could get out again and bring anything with him.”
She ran back, though, and convinced herself, and then we went on down to the car. Nan said I and the Missus would have to sit in back, so she could be beside Harry in front and read him the route out of the Blue Book.
I asked where we was headed.
“It’s a secret,” said Mrs. Cross, giggling.
“I don’t doubt it,” said I. “With your husband in the driver’s seat, the destination’s always a secret.”
I and the wife braced ourselves for another leaping getaway, but Cross did a whole lot better this time.
“If it wasn’t for straining the engine,” he said, “I’d start right out on high.”
“Anyway,” said I, “that’s where we’ll probably finish.”
We hadn’t been out of bed more than two hours, but that didn’t stop my Missus from going to sleep before we struck South Chicago.
After four wrong turns, we finally came to Indianapolis Avenue, that’s named after a town in the American Association. A few blocks ahead I saw a roadhouse called the Auto Inn, probably under the same management as the Grand Hotel and the Elite Café and the Economy Dry Goods Store.
“Cross,” I said, “our cupboard was bare this morning, and I don’t like to start out on a joyride with no oil. If you think you’re not going too fast to stop, let’s pull up minute at the joint with the peculiar name and get a couple of quick ones while the Missus is asleep.”
Nan cut in.
“No, indeed!” she said. “Harry mustn’t drink while he’s driving. Pretty near all automobile accidents are caused by liquor.”
“Anyway,” said Cross, “I’m going to try not to stop at all till we reach Michigan City. You can get a drink there.”
“How far is that?” I asked him.
“About sixty miles,” he said.
“But Indiana goes dry next April,” I said.
The book told us to fork off Indianapolis Avenue to the right. Between the place you fork and the outskirts of Hammond, there’s three or four miles of cement along Lake George that’s like a billiard table, and wide enough for three machines and a kid on roller skates to pass.
“Now we can make some time,” said Cross, and before I realized it, he had her up to eighteen miles per hour.
Nan grabbed his right arm. “Oh, Harry, please slow down!” she said.
“I’m all right,” said Cross, giving a kind of scared laugh. “There’s no danger as long as I keep my nerve. Besides, I’ve gone faster than this already.”
“Yes,” said his wife, “but it was when the instructor was with you.”
“But he couldn’t do anything to prevent an accident,” said Cross.
“He might have bigger hands than your wife,” said I, “and get a better grip on your arm. Many a life’s been saved by a good tight grasp on the chauffeur’s arm.”
In East Chicago we changed our minds about not stopping. The book said we had to turn left at the intersection of Chicago Avenue and something else, and right in the middle of the four corners, there was the East Chicago traffic-squad. Cross cut in to the left of him and he was on our running-board in nothing.
“Czech ipecac?” he said, which means in the English language: “What’s the matter with you?”
“Don’t get fresh, now!” said Cross.
“Tisza goulash!” (Come along to the station!) said the squad.
“Listen, old pal!” I said. “The lady in the back seat here is sick, and we’re trying to get her to a hospital in Gary. Do you ever smoke?”
So we were on our way again.
“Cross,” I said, “I bet your middle initial is von Bethmann. You know just how to handle ’em. Only you made one mistake. You should always call them some name—or else have your tire-wrench handy and crack them in the bean.”
The book’s next instructions was to cross fifty-two railroad tracks, but the deck was a couple shy.
“ ‘At the end of the street,’ ” read Mrs. Cross, “ ‘turn right.’ ”
This was pretty good dope, as you couldn’t of turned to the left or driven straight ahead without hurdling a fence or a signboard into a field.
“The man that got up this book,” said Mrs. Cross, “must of rode along here himself sometime.”
“Either that,” I said, “or else he wrote the book first and then they made the
