“Like blazes!” said Cross. “I’ll wait till we get back home. We could never have two punctures on one trip.”
“No,” said I. “I’d forgotten that rule for the moment.”
“And furthermore,” said Cross, “we’re not going to stop in Michigan City for no lunch. We’re going to stop just long enough to get water and gas. Those that are hungry can buy some sandwiches and eat them on the way.”
“But Harry, I’m starved,” said his wife.
“Well, it’s your own fault,” said Cross. “In the first place, you didn’t get up in time to cook a decent breakfast. And the second place, if you’d kept track of the route, and not run us clear to Louisville trying to get out of East Gary, we’d of had time for a porterhouse steak in this town we’re coming to.”
“If you’d watched where you were driving, we might not of picked up that nail,” said his wife. “And then it took you all day and half the night to switch tires.”
“Shut up!” said Cross.
When we stopped in front of Michigan City’s handsomest garage, I handed the Missus fifty cents and jumped out.
“Buy yourself whatever you want to eat,” I told her. “I’ve got a date down at the next corner.”
She leaned over and whispered to me. “Don’t be long,” she said. “He’s just mean enough to go off and leave you.”
“You mean,” said I, “that he’s just mean enough not to.”
I was right. I had five and took my time about it, but when I came back, the car was still there. The Missus had a sackful of doughnuts, and Mrs. Cross an eyeful of tears.
The Missus whispered to me again. “He’s been abusing her terribly,” she said.
“What for?” I asked.
“Because you kept us waiting,” said the Missus. “He’s no different from other husbands.”
I was feeling too good to resent this fearful insult at the time, and I managed to be jovial all the way to New Buffalo. But it was a solo part. The Missus offered Nan a doughnut and got snapped at. Cross lost all control of himself and covered a mile and a half at the fearful rate of twenty-two per hour.
“Look out, boy!” I said to him. “There’s speed-laws even in the country.”
“Shut up!” said Cross.
“You’ve got some vocabulary! Six words and a bark!”
I’d been through New Buffalo on the train, but never knew before why they call it that. It’s because the sensation of motoring through the streets is like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
A mile or so the other side we stopped dead, all spraddled out over a railroad track.
“This is the Père Marquette,” said Cross.
“Even so,” I said, “there may be trains on it.”
“I’ve killed my engine,” said Cross.
“That has nothing to do with theirs,” said I, and I got out to stretch.
We’d been pulling through sand in second speed, and at the time of the engine’s demise our host had neglected to shift into neuter. So when his foot pressed the self-starter, the Champion was off the track in one jump. After that the engine died again.
“Now you’re using better judgment,” I said, and climbed back in.
“If you don’t like the way I drive, you know what you can do,” said Cross.
“Yes sir,” said I, “and I’m going to do it.”
And while we were breezing along the beautiful road to Three Oaks at a nineteen-mile gait, I confided my plans to the Missus.
“I’m beginning to get deliberately unfriendly myself,” I told her. “They hate us, and we hate them. They also hate each other, and it’s just a question of time till we’ll be doing that too. Where we’re going is no longer a secret. We’re going back to Chicago.”
“Mrs. Cross will be mad,” said the wife.
“Will be!” I said.
“And besides,” said the Missus, “if we leave them to go on alone, they’ll kill each other and then we’ll have it on our conscience.”
“Not as much,” said I, “as though we personally assisted at the function.”
“Well,” said the Missus, “you know best.”
So on Main Street, in Three Oaks, Mich., I ordered our chauffeur to desist.
“Cross,” I said, “we’re going to leave you here.”
“Oh, don’t do that!” said Mrs. Cross, and her voice was as full of warmth as the Kaiser.
“We must,” I said. “My Missus doesn’t feel good. She’s got another of those spells that overtook her in East Chicago. And she’s always prayed that when Death came, she would receive him at home and not among Michigan strangers.”
“Don’t coax them!” said Cross. “If they want to quit on us, I’m willing.”
“Goodbye, then,” I said, “and good luck to you!”
“Shut your mouth!” said Cross.
It was four o’clock when we were set down in Three Oaks, and we had to wait till pretty near seven for a train. So we had plenty of time to count all the acorns.
“I hope there’s a diner,” said the Missus.
She said that four hundred and sixty-two times.
“I hope they have another puncture.”
I said that just as often.
“We made a mistake accepting their invitation,” said the Missus, when we were speeding westward with a double order of ham and eggs staring us in the face.
“Thanks for the ‘we,’ ” said I. “But it was my mistake.”
During the next two weeks I saw Cross five or six times and got nothing but sour looks. But on Monday morning of the third week he was standing by my desk when I blew in to work.
I didn’t give him any encouragement, and it took all the nerve he had to open up.
“Well?” he said finally.
“Shut your mouth!” said I.
“Say, listen!” he said. “Let’s forget all that. I owe you all kinds of apologies.”
“I’m willing you should stay in debt,” said I.
“But I’m not,” he said. “I acted like a rummy.”
“You were natural,” I said.
“No, I wasn’t,” said Cross. “It was that blasted car.”
Five minutes of silence.
“Would you like to hear what happened?” he asked me.
“Yes,” said I, knowing he’d tell me anyway.
“Well,” he
