Crosley sniffed the air contemptuously before he spoke.
“She’s pumping oil to beat the band,” he said. “We don’t seem to be getting any compression either. We can’t get a kick out of her. Been flopping around for an hour.”
“Sure maybe ye be needin’ new rings,” said Tully. “Guess ye been pushin’ her too hard, hey?”
He glanced into the cockpit and with a fine show of rueful astonishment, beheld the disastrous results of his own handiwork. She was indeed pumping oil. The engine head was covered with it, and it was streaming down the side over the carburetor. Three or four spark plugs had been taken out and lay on a locker in little puddles of oozy muck.
“If ’t was only one cylinder now, I’d be sayin’ ye had a busted ring, or even a cracked piston,” Tully said blandly. “But shiverin’ swordfish if it don’t look like the whole six o’ thim, don’t it? Ye can’t do nothin’ here. Looks like ye was racin’ her a lot.” His detestable device had worked so well that he seemed moved to offer gratuitous suggestions. “I knowed a guy was stuck on the bar over by Inland Beach and he kept racin’ his motor, and somehow—I dunno just how—she sucked in a lot o’ beach sand and it sanded down his cylinder wall good an’ plenty, so it did.”
Skinner’s lips were drawn in a thin line above his pointed chin.
“Does that mean we’ll have to be towed back, Crosley?” he asked his host petulantly.
“Afraid so, Marty,” answered Crosley. “I can’t imagine how a fine engine like mine could break down so soon.”
“Sure and if that ain’t just like some guys,” said Tully glibly. “They’re fine’s a fiddle one day and the next—they’re done for, ain’t it so?”
Crosley nodded indifferently.