“No; only a few minutes. There is a preparation something like putty which you force into the puncture, and which dries in a very few minutes. Of course, a tire fixed in this way would never be considered as satisfactory as a new inner tube, yet they have been known to go many miles without the slightest trouble. In fact, you are more apt to get a new puncture, than to have the patch give out.”
Time passed so quickly as the big machine shot along the level highway at a rapid pace that no one realized their whereabouts until Aunt Betty cried suddenly:
“Oh, look over there! Those must be the Northern Lights.”
Her hand was extended toward a brilliant glare which lit up the sky as the moon went behind a heavy cloud.
“The Northern Lights, and in the east!” cried Dorothy. “Oh, Aunt Betty!”
“As I live that is the east! Why, I’m all turned around. Then what are those lights, my dear?”
“Baltimore, of course, you dear auntie.”
“So soon? Why, it seems as if we have been out barely two hours.”
“And we have been out but a very little more,” said Jim, looking at his watch. “It is only eleven o’clock and it was a few minutes to nine when we left the hotel. Another half hour will put us to the gates of Bellvieu, eh, Gerald?”
“Surely,” was the response, delivered in an “I-told-you-so” tone.