After that we got along famously. He had his car there—a low gray thing that looked like an armored cruiser.
"I'd like you ladies to try her," he said. "She can move, but she is as gentle as a lamb. A lady friend of mine once threaded a needle as an experiment while going sixty-five miles an hour."
"In this car?"
"In this car."
Looking back, I do not recall just how the thing started. I believe Tish expressed a desire to see the car go, and Mr. Ellis said he couldn't let her out on the roads, but that the race-track at the fair-ground was open and if we cared to drive down there in Tish's car he would show us her paces, as he called it.
From that to going to the race-track, and from that to Tish's getting in beside him on the mechanician's seat and going round once or twice, was natural. I refused; I didn't like the look of the thing.
Tish came back with a cinder in her eye and full of enthusiasm. "It was magnificent, Lizzie," she said. "The only word for it is sublime. You see nothing. There is just the rush of the wind and the roar of the engine and a wonderful feeling of flying. Here! See if you can find this cinder."
"Won't you try it, Miss—er—Lizzie?"
"No, thanks," I replied. "I can get all the roar and rush of wind I want in front of an electric fan, and no danger."
He stood by, looking out over the oval track while I took three cinders from Tish's eye.