Sssssssssssss, went the tire.
“We’ve got a puncture,” said Napoleon.
“Sure as you live,” said Charlie Chaplin.
“That was a new tire, too,” said Harry Bensen, the gypsy king, as he got out to inspect the damage.
“Isn’t it exasperating!” said Carmen alias Ruth Collins.
“Now I suppose we’ll simply never get home,” chirped Martha Washington alias Marjorie Dennison. “And I want you all to stop at my house for a cup of coffee, it’s so chilly.”
Slowly, fearfully, the mighty hero retraced his steps. The hurrying Emerson, too, had heard the merry voice of Elsie Harris and then the others and he paused midway between the road and the dark house, and then returned curiously.
“What on earth are you doing here?” Elsie asked of the abashed hero. “And Emmy Skybrow too! You both ought to be home in bed.”
“I—we—we got an—a call over the radio,” Pee-wee stammered. “It was broadcasted that a stolen car with gypsies in it was maybe coming this way so we laid keekie for it and I thought Harry Bensen was a gypsy like the announcer said so that shows anybody can be mistaken so I punched a hole in the tire with an ice-pick because then if it had been stolen—the car—we’d have caught them, wouldn’t we? So I jabbed a hole in it with an ice-pick but anyway I was mistaken. But anyway if you’re going to Marjorie Dennison’s for hot coffee we’ll go with you, and we’ll help you change the tire too, because, gee whiz, we’re good and hungry.”
We need not recount the comments of the several members of the masquerade party, particularly the rather pithy observations of Pee-wee’s sister Elsie who had previously suffered at his hands. It will be quite sufficient to say that Harry Bensen, the gypsy king, was a good sport and a staunch admirer of Pee-wee. They put on a spare tire and then took the unhappy heroes into the car and made good speed for the Dennison place in East Bridgeboro.