Aunt Miranda pleaded with him to keep in near the shore, because she was getting seasick; but her tears were in vain.
"You must appear calm and indifferent in the presence of danger," muttered Uncle Gilbert as they rushed madly into the bosom of a flock of cows.
But luck was with them, for with a turn of the wrist Uncle Gilbert jumped the machine across the road, and all he could feel was the sharp swish of an old cow's tail across his cheek as they rushed on and out of that animal's life forever.
Aunt Miranda tried to be brave and to chat pleasantly. "How is Wall Street these days?" she asked, and just then the machine struck a stone and she went up in the air.
"Unsettled," answered Uncle Gilbert when she got back, and then there was an embarrassing silence.
To try to hold a polite conversation, on a motor car in full flight is very much like trying to repeat the Declaration of Independence while falling from a seventh-story window.
Then, all of a sudden, the machine struck a chord in G, and started for Newfoundland at the rate of 7,000,000 miles a minute.
Aunt Miranda threw her arms around Uncle Gilbert's neck, he threw his neck around the lever, the lever threw him over, and they both threw a fit.