“Well, get him to set a price on it, spot cash, and if it’s too high we’ll step out with shank’s mare again,” Thad told the negotiator.
Accordingly Giraffe brushed up his high-school German and set to work. The man listened to what he was saying, nodding his head meanwhile. His eyes had a cunning look in them Thad thought, that seemed to tell of covetousness.
“Whew!” they heard Giraffe say in an explosive way, after the other had committed himself.
“What is his lowest figure in cash?” asked Thad.
“He nearly took my breath away,” declared the other; “actually asks five hundred marks for an old trap like this!”
“It’s highway robbery, that’s what!” commented Bumpus, in dismay.
“He says all the decent cars are being taken over by the military authorities,” continued Giraffe; “and that this sort of machine is the only kind that it’s safe to own.”
“Well, so far as that goes he’s right,” admitted Allan.
“Yes, but he couldn’t get twenty-five dollars for the tub if he put it up at auction!” Bumpus asserted, just as though he were an authority on all such subjects; “and here he asks a plump hundred for the bunch of scrap iron.”
All the same Bumpus kept an eager eye fastened on Thad, as though he were in hopes the patrol leader might yet find some way to negotiate a deal; for Bumpus would a thousand times rather travel in the slowest and most uncertain car ever known than to walk.