“Well, at any rate you can’t know less than Elmer,” said the big man with a disgusted look at his chauffeur, who looked downcast and abashed. “What do you want to do?”
“See if I can get your car going for you. I’m interested in this sort of thing, you know.”
“Umph! don’t look as if you owned a car,” commented the man who had been addressed as “Smithers.”
“That’ll do, Smithers,” spoke up the big man sharply. “Elmer owns that he’s up against it, so give the boy a chance to show what he can do.”
In one garage where he had worked for a time the “big man of the place” had owned, as it so happened, a Dolores car. Therefore Ned was not at sea when, in the overalls he had borrowed from the chauffeur, he set to work on the stubborn motor.
“Think you can fix it?” asked the big man, after Ned had requested the chauffeur to start the engine so that he could hear just what was the matter with it.
“I don’t know,” said Ned frankly. “It’s missing in two cylinders. Carburetor trouble, I think. The Dolores has a special make of carburetor, you know, a very sensitive and complicated variety.”
“Go to it, kid,” muttered the chauffeur. “If you can fix that mixed-up muss of springs and air-valves you’re a wonder.”
“If you’ll slow down the engine a while, I’ll try,” said Ned, determined to do his best. It was characteristic of him that he was as interested in this vagrant bit of roadside trouble that had come his way as he would have been in some problem directly concerning himself. As it so happened, however, the problem he was about to try to solve did concern him and, at that, in no very distant manner.