Matt was doing the driving, and Billy sat beside him as guide, counselor, and friend. In the back of the machine was McGlory.
That was Thursday. Matt and his chum were heeding a summons that carried them toward the Malvern Country Club, near Hempstead. After transacting their business at the Country Club—they did not know what it was, but believed it would not take them long—they were planning to return to Krug’s Corner for their noon meal, and then back to Manhattan by Jackson Avenue and the Williamsburg Bridge. But plans are easily made, sometimes, and not so easily carried out.
The day was bright, the roads were good, and the motor boys were enjoying themselves. Well along the Jericho Pike they had come up with a white runabout, two seats in front and a deck behind, and the actions of this car aroused their curiosity to such an extent that Matt slowed down the big machine in order that he and those with him could follow and watch the performance.
There was only one passenger in the white car, and he was having his hands full.
The runabout would angle from one side of the road to the other, in apparent defiance of the way the steering wheel was held, and sometimes it would go its eccentric course slowly and sometimes with a rush—so far as those in the other car could see—without any change in the speed gear.
The driver of the runabout worked frantically to keep the machine where it ought to be, but the task was too much for him.
Once a telephone pole gave him a close shave, and once his unmanageable car gave a sidewise lurch that almost hurled it into a machine going the other way.
“What’s the matter?” Matt hailed.
The man in the runabout looked around with a facial expression that was far from angelic.
“If I knew what was the matter with this confounded car,” he cried in exasperation, “do you think I’d be side-stepping all over the road the way I am?” Then, muttering to himself, he humped over the steering wheel again.