"Yet not so deliberately, at that. Do you feel us pick up my dear, when I give her gas? Aha!" he laughed. "I agree with you, however, that the order of precedence is unsatisfactory. Why should we follow the Burtons, indeed?"
We went after them; we gave them the horn and overtook and passed them on a stiff grade, amid cheers from both cars. But all of our cheering was done by Todd.
"Now they are following us," said he. "Do you feel better, my dear?"
"Better!" she lamented. "How can I ever look them in the face again?"
"Turn around," he suggested, "and direct your gaze through the little window in the back curtain."
She bade him stop at the next corner. She would walk home. She was humiliated. Never had she felt so ashamed.
"Isn't that an odd way to feel when we have beaten the shoes off them?"
"But they will think we tried to."
"So we did," he chuckled; "and we walked right past them, in high, while Burton was fussing with his gear shift. Give our little engine a fair go at a hill, my dear——"
"I am not in the least interested in engines, sir. I am only mortified beyond words."