“Twelve hundred!” Tom stared at Willard as though he suspected his friend of having lost his senses. “Twelve hundred! Where would we get twelve hundred, I’d like to know!”
“Oh, we might. We wouldn’t have to pay it all at once, maybe. For that matter, I dare say we could find a second-hand one at a bargain. I saw dozens of them in Providence. Even if we got a very small one to start with——”
“You want to go right home and bathe your head,” said Tom sympathetically. “That trip and the excitement of it were too much for you, Will. Considering that we’ve so far made only about ten dollars and owe a couple of hundred I guess we’d better not buy any motor trucks just yet.”
“I didn’t say now, did I?” responded Willard untroubledly. “You wait until we once get going right. Why, we ought to take in ten or twelve dollars a day. That’s, say, sixty a week, and sixty a week is over two hundred and forty a month!”
“All right. When we’re making two hundred and forty a month, Will, we’ll talk about that motor truck. Just at present what we want to remember is that we’ve got to pay Saunders some more money in a little over two weeks. And we’ve got to buy gasoline this afternoon, too. Don’t let me forget that, whatever you do!”
When Pat Herron arrived at the station that evening to meet the 6:05 train he looked like a man about to indulge in an apoplectic fit! For there, right in front of where he had been in the habit of stopping his hack, stood that pesky automobile!
“Get out of that now!” bawled Pat angrily. “’Tis plain I’ll have to be after having the cop run yez in! Move on, I tell yez!”
But Tom and Willard only regarded him untroubledly for an instant, and then went on with their conversation. Pat tossed down his reins, leaped from the box and hurried to the side of The Ark. His helper, who drove the surrey, was not present, since there were seldom more passengers from the six o’clock train than could be carried in the hack, and Pat, perhaps, felt the lack of support. At all events, he was less truculent when he reached the car.
“What’s the good of yez makin’ trouble, byes?” he demanded. “Sure, ye’ve been told ye couldn’t stand here. If Connors gets after yez he’ll have yez arrested, like as not.”
“Oh, that’s all right, Pat,” answered Willard. “I ran over to Providence this morning and saw the president of the road. We’ve got a stand here now; in fact, two of them. After this you’ll find us between these two posts, Pat. And later on we’ll have another car at the far end there. So don’t you worry any more, old top.”