And “go ahead” he did, though No. 793 thought he would be wrenched to pieces.
“Whatever is happening to me?” he nervously asked the car that was pushing him. “I feel my wheels going round and round underneath me and I can’t stop them. Can’t you just hear me creak? I’m afraid I will split in two.”
The dilapidated old thing behind simply screamed with delight as he jounced over a switch.
“See here, now,” he said in a rasping voice, “what do you think wheels are for anyway if they are not to go round? And if you can’t hang together in a quiet little jaunt like this, you had better turn into a baby carriage and be done with it. Say, what do you think you were made for anyway, Freshie?”
With this he gave a vicious pull. Freshie thought it would probably loosen every carefully fastened bolt in his whole structure.
“And what’s more,” continued the amused and irritated old car, “if you think all you’ve got to do is to be pulled around like a fine lady in a limousine, you are pretty well fooled. Wait till you feel the juice go through you—just wait—that’s all I say.”
“What is juice?” groaned No. 793.
But he could get no answer except “Just wait, you will find out soon enough.”
In another minute he had found out. He felt his door pulled open and a heavy tread come clump, clump, clump down the whole length of him to the little closet room at the end. There he felt levers pulled and switches turned. Suddenly the little wire brush underneath him dropped until it touched the third rail. Z-z-zr-zr-zr-zz-zz—What in the name of all blazes was happening to him? He tingled in every bolt. He quivered with fear. “This must be the juice!” Another lever was turned. He leaped forward on the track, jerking and thumping and creaking.
Then he settled down and it wasn’t so bad. The first scare was over. He did not go to pieces. On the contrary he felt so excited and strong that he almost told the old thing behind him to take off his brush and let himself be pulled. But he was afraid of the cross old car. So he ventured timidly: “Isn’t this great? I should like to go flying along in the sun like this all day.”