"I am, and I want to know by what right you've been running the cars without the regular drivers?"
"We wanted to get back to the city and the chauffeurs were in no condition to bring us back," put in Tom.
"What have you to do with it, young man?"
"I drove one car and my brother here drove the other. We didn't hurt the machines and you ought to be glad we brought them back in good condition."
"Humph! You hadn't any license to run them."
"We took the liberty of doing so," said Dick. "If you want to get angry about it, I'll get angry myself. You had no right to place those cars in the hands of unreliable men. You risked our lives by so doing."
"Those men are reliable enough. One of them telephoned to me you had run away with the autos."
"The folks at the Dardell Hotel will tell you how reliable they were. I warned them not to drink, but they did, and they were in no condition to run any automobile."
"I don't allow just anybody to run my machines," stormed the man.
"They are expensive pieces of property."
"Well, they are not worth as much as our necks, not by a good deal," said Tom.