“If you had your choice, my man, I’m thinkin’ you’d take the car, surely, and buy ten horses with the money it would bring you.”
“Come, come, now,” exclaimed the country man, settling himself comfortably on the seat and preparing for argument, “answer me this question if tha’ can. If I stick a pin in my horse’s leg, he goes the faster for the prick. If tha’ sticks a pin in tha’ steam horse’s leg, he will not go at all, at all.”
The young people laughed over this irrefutable statement.
“He certainly will not,” said Billie. “He’s completely disabled. But just you wait till I get this prick mended and see how he flies. In two minutes he’ll leave you and your old horse miles behind.”
“I’ll wait, then, ma’am, and gladly, for the sight so fine as tha’ tells me. A red rocket he’ll be, by jingo, a-shootin’ through tha’ air at such a rate.”
“His name is ‘Comet,’” remarked Mary proudly.
“Is it true, now?” asked the country fellow, his eyes twinkling with a subdued humor. “If tha’ be goin’ in a moment, I’ll tak’ the time to sit by the road side and see the grand spectacle.”
The girls always believed that the carter had bewitched the “Comet.” Certainly, as he drew his horse to one side of the highway, there was an expression on his face of intense enjoyment of what was to come.
“It’ll be a grand sight, ma’am,” he called again while Billie cranked up the machine and proudly took her seat at the wheel. “An’ a young lady the engineer, too!” he continued. “I never see the likes before in all me life. Tha’ ‘Comet,’ now! A fine name and tha’ be goin’ to have a fine ride, I’m thinkin’.”
Billie threw in the clutch and waited, intending to furnish that country fellow with a fit reward for his anticipations. They sat in breathless expectancy. Another moment and they would be a scarlet speck on the landscape and the carter left by the roadside to consider the advantages of driving over automobiling. But the “Comet” never budged an inch.