"Don't you get gay with me," he shouted. "I'm not going to lose a twenty-five hundred dollar car and not make somebody smart for it. I told the chink that was what the car was worth."
"I know something about cars," put in Matt mildly, "and this one is out of date—four years old, if it's a day. If it had been a modern car, with the gasoline tank in the right place, it would never have caught fire, and you could have saved something out of the wreck. The proper feed is by gravity, and the right place for the tank is under the seat——"
"Oh, you!" sneered Jackson, "what do you know about cars?"
"He can forget more in a minute about these chug wagons," bristled McGlory, "than you know in a year. Put that in your brier and whiff it. This fellow's Motor Matt, motor expert, late of Burton's Big Consolidated Shows, where he's been exhibiting the Traquair aëroplane. Now bear down on your soft pedal, will you?"
"Thunder!" breathed the man in the runabout.
"Is—is that a fact?" queried Jackson, visibly impressed.
"It's a fact," said Matt, "but it needn't make any difference in this case. That car of yours, Jackson, would have been dear at a thousand dollars. You'll get every cent the car is worth, too. The Chinaman who hired it is a mandarin. He's in this country on private business. He has tea plantations, rice fields, and money in the bank till you can't rest. Now, stop worrying about the damages and give my chum and me a lift up the hill. We'll find Tsan Ti at the Kaaterskill. That's where he's been staying for a week or two."
Jackson was mollified.
"Of course," said he, "I don't want to be rough with anybody, but you understand how it is. This country is hard on cars, and I have to charge good prices and be sure the cars are hired by men who can put up for them if they go over a cliff or meet with any other kind of a wreck. I'm obliged to you for your information about Tsan Ti. He's been a good deal of a conundrum at the Kaaterskill since he's put up there. A man, riding up from below, passed a couple of Chinamen chin-chinning beside this wreck, and he brought word to me. That's how Jim and I happened to come down."
"You say the man from below passed two Chinamen talking near the car?" queried Matt, with a surprised glance at McGlory.