“All ready, Ephy?”
“Yas’r—yas’r.”
“Then we’re off.”
The big Ajax started without a jar and moved almost noiselessly off down the road. The engine ran so smoothly that it was hard to imagine anything but an electric motor was driving the machine.
Gerald knew Baltimore and its environs by heart. He did not enter the city immediately, however, but kept to the fine country roads which lay just outside. When a level stretch was reached once, he put her on the high speed, and Jim and Ephraim traveled for a few moments at a pace neither had ever experienced before—even on a railroad train.
Finally, slowing down, Gerald said:
“Now I’ll change places with you, Jim, and you shall run the car.”
The change was quickly effected, Jim being eager to feel the big steering wheel in his grasp, his feet on the pedals in front, with the single thought in his mind that the Ajax was run and controlled by his hand alone.
Gerald explained the points of starting, showing him the three speeds forward and the reverse; how to regulate his spark so as to keep the motor from knocking, especially on heavy grades; then how to advance the spark where the pull was slight, so as to make the motor work cooler and to use less gasoline.
Jim admired Gerald’s thorough knowledge of the car. It showed a side to the boy’s nature that Jim had not suspected—in fact, the Gerald Blank who owned this auto was hardly the same boy who had caused so much dissension on the houseboat the summer before.