“I’ll tell you at noon,” he said. “There isn’t time now. We’ve got only three minutes to get to school. Wait for me at the east door at recess, Tom.”
Tom’s lessons didn’t go very well that forenoon. Try as he might, he couldn’t get that automobile out of his head, and the schemes he evolved and abandoned to get possession of it were legion. After morning session he waited for Willard at the front entrance, and the two boys sought a quiet corner of the stone curbing about the high school grounds and opened their lunch-boxes. After Willard had taken the edge off his appetite by the consumption of three sandwiches and a slice of pie he consented to satisfy Tom’s curiosity.
“My, but I was starved. I didn’t eat much breakfast, because I was afraid I’d miss you at your house, and I wanted to have a look at that car with you. You don’t think there’s much chance of your father buying it?”
“I don’t believe there’s any chance,” replied Tom ruefully.
“Is there any other way you know of that you can get the money?”
“No, I wish there was!”
“Well, all right,” and Willard began to peel and quarter an orange. “I spoke to my dad about that auto last night, Tom. You see, I got to thinking about it, after I left you, and it seemed to me like a pretty good idea. He said it sounded as though it might be a bargain, and he didn’t see why you couldn’t do pretty well bringing folks up from the station. We talked it all over, and—well, here’s my idea. See how you like it. You say you can’t get the money to buy it yourself. I don’t want to ‘butt in,’ Tom, but I’ve been thinking that perhaps you and I could go into the thing together, that is, if you don’t mind having a partner. Wait a minute! Now, suppose we get a man to look that car all over and tell us how much it would cost to put it in good shape. Dad knows of just the chap. His name is Brennan, and he works in the machine shop down by the railroad. Dad says he’d probably do it for us for a dollar. Then, if he says the car can be fixed up for—well, say, fifty dollars, we’ll go ahead. You get your father to put in fifty, and I’ll put in fifty. That’ll make a hundred. We’ll pay fifty dollars down to Saunders, and we’ll spend fifty in having it repaired and painted. We’ll do the painting ourselves. That will leave us in debt about a hundred dollars. If it’s necessary I’ll put in another fifty, but if it isn’t we’ll pay off what we owe in installments. As the idea was yours, and, as you’ll do the work, you’ll get two-thirds of what we make, and I’ll get one-third. What do you say?”
“Why—but—can you do that?” exclaimed Tom.
“Yes. You know I got some money from my grandmother’s estate last Fall. I’m to use it for college, but I won’t need it all, and, anyway, if this thing works out the way we expect it to, it will be a good investment. Of course, I wouldn’t want to risk more than a hundred, Tom; I couldn’t afford to. Maybe you think you ought to get more than two-thirds, but dad thought that was fair, and——”
“That part’s all right,” said Tom. “Seems to me you ought to have more than a third of the earnings, Will.”