“Then go to blazes.”
“It's your fault!”
“Good night, Bill.”
“Good night, Tommy. Say, a coil in the manifold intake—”
Tommy snored loudly. Bill's sigh was almost as audible. Then the door closed softly.
CHAPTER XI
TOMMY devoted himself whole-souledly to the study of the car Mr. Thompson had told him to play with. It delighted him to put flesh on what hitherto had been but the bones of theory. He was certain the car would make him very valuable to the Tecumseh Company as a salesman. As soon as he could drive with confidence he began to drive with pleasure, and as soon as he could do that he dragged Bill from the little shop in Mrs. Clayton's woodshed and gave him a joy-ride. Together they made a long list of improvements, nearly all of them suggested by Tommy, who, not being a mechanic, found difficult and complicated what to Bill was a simple matter to fix and adjust. “The Beginner's Delight” was what Tommy, the salesman, called the Tecumseh car as it ought to be, the car that would sell itself. Bill, the mechanic, called it “The D. P.'s Dream.”
Tommy at first dutifully reported the needed improvements to the men in the shop, but they laughed at him and called him Daredevil Dick; or, when they took him seriously, told him that the suggestions were either impractical or unavailable, because they involved structural changes that were either commercially extravagant or mechanically inexpedient.