“All right, feel of it,” I laughed. “Come around here and feel of it.”
“I ain’t got no call to feel it,” he drawled; “I can hear it.”
“Standing there?” I laughed. “You must have better ears than I have.”
I went and stood beside him, in front of the car, and heard nothing.
“Hear it?” he asked.
“I certainly don’t,” I told him.
“Them ears o’ yourn is stopped up like a ole ground-hog hole,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said, and by way of closing the matter finally I stooped and listened at the tire valve. As sure as life there was a faint hissing there, a slow leak. I dare say at the rate of leakage that was going on the tire might have stood up till I reached Kingston, though I changed it then and there to be on the safe side. What astounded me was that this stranger had heard at ten or twelve feet that all but inaudible hissing which bespoke the slow emission of air out of the tire. It was nothing less than miraculous.
The stranger smiled, which multiplied the wrinkles about his firm old mouth. “Them ears o’ yourn is ’baout’s clear as a ole filled up skunk hole,” he drawled.
“First it was a ground-hog, then it was a skunk,” I complained good-humoredly.