BENTON’S VENTURE
CHAPTER I
TOM HAS AN IDEA
“Want to buy an automobile, son?”
Tom Benton smiled and shook his head.
“All right,” pursued the man good-naturedly. “I saw you looking at it, and I didn’t know but you might be wanting a good car. She’s a bargain.”
“Sort of—worn out, isn’t it?” asked Tom, moving around to a new point of view.
“N-no, there’s life in her yet, I guess. ’Course she needs overhauling, as you might say, and some paint. But she’s got four whole cylinders, a good set of gears an’—an’ some other things. No, she ain’t as bad as she looks. If you hear of anyone looking for a bargain in a five-seat, twenty-two-horsepower automobile, you tell ’em to come and see me, son.”
“What do you want for her?” asked Tom.
The carriage dealer looked at him shrewdly, kicked one worn and tattered tire as if to satisfy himself that it wouldn’t come to pieces, and replied: “A hundred and fifty dollars takes her just as she stands, with top, side curtains, top cover an’—an’ I think there’s a jack under the hind seat.”
“I dare say that’s reasonable,” replied Tom doubtfully, “but I guess it would take a lot to put that car in running shape, wouldn’t it?”