The machine had developed a slight pounding and the rear-axle showed signs of again parting at the differential.
After luncheon the machine was run into a machine shop, and three hours were spent in taking up the lost motion in the eccentric strap, at the crank-pin, and in a loose bushing.
On opening up the differential gear case both set-screws holding the axles were found loose. The factory had been most emphatically requested to put in larger keys so as to fit the key-ways snugly and to lock these set-screws in some way—neither of these things had been done; and both halves of the rear-axle were on the verge of working out.
Small holes were bored through the set-screws, wires passed through and around the shoulders of the gears, and we had no further trouble from this source.
It was half-past five before we left Syracuse for Oneida. The road is good, and the run of twenty-seven miles was made in little over two hours, arriving at the small, old-fashioned tavern in Oneida at exactly seven forty-five.
A number of old-timers dropped into the hotel office that evening to see what was going on and hear about the strange machine. Great stories were exchanged on all sides; the glories of Oneida quite eclipsed the lesser claims of the automobile to fame and notoriety, for it seemed that some of the best known men of New York and Chicago were born in the village or the immediate vicinity; the land-marks remain, traditions are intact, the men departed to seek their fortunes elsewhere, but their successes are the town's fame.
The genial proprietor of the hotel carried his seventy-odd years and two hundred and sixty pounds quite handily in his shirt-sleeves, moving with commendable celerity from office to bar-room, supplying us in the front room with information and those in the back with refreshment.
"So you never heard that those big men were born in this locality. That's strange; tho't ev'rybody knew that. Why 'Neida has produced more famous men than any town same size in 'Merika,—Russell Sage, General New,—comin'" (to those in the bar-room); "say, you fellers, can't you wait?" As he disappeared in the rear we heard his rotund voice, "What'll you take? Was jest tellin' that chap with the threshin'-machine a thing or two about this country. Rye? no, thet's Bourbon—the reel corn juice—ten years in wood—"
"Mixed across the street at the drug store—ha! ha! ha!" interrupted some one.
"Don't be faceshus, Sam; this ain't no sody-fountin."