"Thank you; I'll come over to your car, anyway," Gerard accepted. "But——What is it, Rupert?"
"I guess you'd call it a raincoat," was the drawled reply. "I'd feel bad to find you'd brought out your pajamas, for there ain't anything to do except wear it, now."
"I'm not cold."
The mechanician nodded a brief return to Corrie's laughing salute, and directed his sardonic black eyes to Gerard's right arm, which the rolled-back sleeve left bare to the elbow.
"I ain't specially timid," he submitted. "If rheumatism is part of the racing equipment you like to have with you, I'll just hurry home and make my will before we start."
With an impatient shrug Gerard slipped into the garment.
"Thanks; you're worse than a wife. Rose, you know Jack Rupert, who's sheer nerve when we're racing and sheer nerves when we're not."
"I surely do," Corrie warmly confirmed. "You rode with Mr. Gerard at the Beach when he drove my car for me. I'm not likely to forget that."
The small, malignly intelligent mechanician contemplated him, unsmiling, although far from unfriendly.
"I ride with Gerard," he acquiesced.