It was after three o’clock when he emerged from the last garage on his list, and his face wore a look of irrepressible disappointment, though his ardor and determination had not waned.
“Where next?” he asked himself. “The day is two-thirds gone and I’m no better off than when I started. It would be impossible to visit every private garage. Nor could I identify that chauffeur in a passing car if he was in disguise last night, or tell whether the number plates have been removed or temporarily changed by some means. If changed, by Jove, there’s one way that might be done. There may be something in this.”
He was hit with a new idea, one that immediately struck him as promising. He had in mind, of course, that all of the license plates of that State were blue and numbered with white figures. Returning to the business section, from which his long search had taken him, he again consulted a directory and made a list of the paint stores, one of which he presently entered and questioned the proprietor.
His inquiries proved vain, however, and he hastened to another. Not until close upon five o’clock was he successful, when, accosting the proprietor of a small shop in a side street, he began the same line of inquiries.
“Do you keep vaseline or a paste of any kind that I could color with a pigment?”
“I have vaseline in small jars. What color do you want to make it?”
“Prussian blue,” said Patsy, that being the body color of the number plates.
“You can mix the Prussian blue powder with the vaseline all right?”
“Making a paste that would stick for a time and then wipe off easily?”
“Yes, surely.”