Despite a weakness in his knees, Jimmie was already on his feet. With a protesting hand raised to decline assistance, he made unsteadily for the wash room. He would not admit defeat.
"No, you don't!" he announced. "You don't put me to bed while you fellows go out and have a lot of fun. I'm going with you!"
"But you are in a horribly messed-up state! What happened?"
"Get out that new uniform from my locker," Jimmie urged, "and I'll wash up a bit, and be on hand in a jiffy. I'm all right!"
After a questioning glance at Ned, which was answered with a nod, Jack dashed for the locker and produced a clean uniform. Willingly the two lads assisted Jimmie to remove as much as possible the marks of his recent encounter. Quickly divesting himself of his soiled and blood-stained garments, the lad slipped into his new uniform and dashed down the stairs, fastening buttons as he went. Behind him clattered Jack and Ned, followed by the attorney.
"I'm going, too, if you have room for me," stated Mr. Nobles.
"Hop in," invited Jimmie, "but you'll have to hang onto your teeth, for Harry gets absent-minded sometimes, and drives as if there were no speed ordinances. He likes to burn up tires!"
Not a second was lost by the party in stowing themselves into the big car, which Harry at once headed for the east side. Across the Williamsburg bridge he began to demonstrate the value of Jimmie's advice. The lad dashed under the noses of teams, in front of trolley cars, and through traffic generally in a way that threatened collision a dozen times. However, he was completely master of the car and by his daring and skill avoided accident.
During the time that the congestion of traffic required a moderate pace, Jimmie enlightened Mr. Nobles with stories of Harry's ability and skill as a driver of automobiles in dangerous places.
"Why, one time when we were out west," he related, "we saw a cyclone coming. We knew that if it ever caught us we would be surely goners, so Harry just got us into the car and started ahead of it. He went so fast that we couldn't see anything at all of the landscape. A man with us thought he'd look ahead, but there were so many chickens and things caught on the wind shield he couldn't see, so he put up his head once to look over. Do you know, we were going so fast the wind actually blew that fellow's teeth right down his throat when he opened his mouth to tell us there was a big canyon right ahead?"