“When you think you’ve had enough, we’ll let Ephy try it,” said Gerald.
“I’d never get enough,” smiled Jim. “So better let Ephy get a-hold right here and now.”
He good-naturedly resigned his post, and Ephraim soon found himself sitting in the chauffeur’s seat, the big steering wheel almost touching his breast, his feet on the pedals. Then Gerald instructed him as he had Jim. When he told the old negro to press slowly on one of the pedals to make the machine slow down, Ephraim misunderstood his orders and pressed the wrong one, with the result that the speed remained undiminished, while the exhaust set up such a beating that Ephy turned a shade whiter.
The joke was on him. No harm was done, and soon, when Gerald and Jim were through laughing at him, he began to show considerable agility in the handling of the car.
“I’ll give you both another lesson to-morrow,” said Gerald, as, some seven miles out of the city, he took charge of the big machine and turned for the run back to Baltimore.
Soon the engines began to sing as the car gathered headway. The road was clear ahead, hence Gerald felt no qualms about “speeding her up.” He kept a close watch, however, for lanes and crossroads, twice slowing down for railway crossings, only to resume his former pace when on the other side. Trees and houses flashed past in hopeless confusion. A cloud of dust arose behind them, and mingled with the gaseous smoke that came from the rear of the machine.
Through the city they went, now at a much lessened pace—in fact, at only eight miles an hour, which was the speed limit in the city—finally turning out along the shores of the Chesapeake toward old Bellvieu.
Dorothy and Aunt Betty were sitting on the gallery when they drew up, and waved their hands at Gerald as he let Jim and Ephraim out and turned his machine toward home.
“You are both chauffeurs now, I suppose?” queried Aunt Betty, as the pair came up the walk toward the house.