“Just the same, it is wrong for us to encourage him to become responsible for you, Jennie,” said her aunt. “He really should be warned.”
“Oh!” gasped the plump girl. “Let anybody dare try to get between me and my Henri——”
“Nobody can—no fear—when you are sitting with him in the front seat of that roadster of Tom’s,” said Ruth. “You fill every atom of space, Heavy.”
She went to the window and looked out again. Heavy rolled out of bed—a good deal like a barrel, her aunt said tartly.
“What is it doing outside?” yawned the plump girl.
“Well, it’s not raining. And it is a long run to Boston. We should be on our way now. The road through the hills is winding. There will be no time to stop for a Gypsy picnic.”
“Thank goodness for that!” grumbled Jennie, sitting on the floor, schoolgirl fashion, to draw on her stockings. “I’ll eat enough at breakfast hereafter to keep me alive until we reach a hotel, if you folks insist on inviting wood ants and other savage creatures of the forest to our luncheon table.”
When the party finally gathered for breakfast in the hotel dining room on this morning, it was disgracefully late. Tom had been over both cars and pronounced them fit. He had ordered the tanks filled with gasoline and had tipped one of the garage men liberally to see that this was properly done.
Afterward Captain Tom declared he would never trust a garage workman again.
“The only way to get a thing done well is to do it yourself—and a tip never bought any special service yet,” declared the angry Tom. “It is merely a form of highway robbery.”