“Oh, it isn’t a leather strap; it’s this band of lead that goes around the battery, but they call it a strap. See this crack across it?”
“Oh, that little crack! Does that do any harm?”
“Why, yes, of course; it completely stops the current. You see, the two ends of the strap almost touch; if they did touch, we’d be all right. Now, if I had a little piece of lead to connect those two parts where they are separated, I could fix it in a jiffy! Got any lead?”
“I don’t know. Look in the tool-box.”
“Just a little piece of lead wire, or anything that’s lead.”
“Try a lead pencil,” said Patty, but Philip was poking in the tool-box and paid little attention to her mild joke.
“There isn’t a lead thing here!” he exclaimed. “Your tool-box is too everlastingly cleared up! Every tool in a little pocket by itself! Why don’t you have a whole lot of old rubbishy junk; then we might find something for an emergency?”
“Can’t you find anything that will do?”
“Not a thing! To think that, now we’ve found out what the trouble is, we can’t mend it! and such an easy break to mend, if I just had a scrap of lead. Well, we may as well make up our minds to walk.”
“Oh, dear!” sighed Patty; “I didn’t mind walking so much when I thought the car had really broken down. But just that little bit of a crevice in the battery strap! Oh, can’t we mend it, somehow? Can’t you pull the strap out longer or something?”