“Well, then, put down ten gallons of gasoline at twenty-two cents a gallon.”
“Two-twenty,” murmured Tom.
“And some oil and grease. How much—a dollar’s worth?”
Tom nodded and added another figure.
“Well, there we are. Now we’re ready for business. Now, the question is, how many folks could we carry in a week?”
“Well, there are six express trains a day—three each way,” answered Tom. “Most of the traveling men come on the morning express and go away in the afternoon. Suppose we got three passengers each way for those two trains, Will. That would be three dollars a day. Six times three would be eighteen! Why, that’s a lot!”
“Why not seven times three?”
“Oh, I don’t think dad would like me to run the car on Sundays. Besides, no one comes or goes then, anyway, I guess.”
“That’s so. Eighteen a week, then; and we might make a lot more some weeks, mightn’t we? And four times eighteen is seventy-two. We’d make seventy-two dollars a month! And, out of that, we’d have to pay Saunders twenty, and buy gasoline and oil and things, and maybe repairs; although, if Brennan made a good job of it, it doesn’t seem as though we’d have many repairs for a good while. Hold on, though, Tom! What about tires?”
Tom looked blank. “I’d forgotten those,” he muttered. “And they say tires cost an awful lot. And the tires on the car now don’t look as though they’d last a minute!”