“Yes, yes! What has that to do with it? I know my place. It is not working in the muddy ditch over a motor-car. No!”
“I believe you,” muttered Tom to Mary. “His place is somewhere on a mantelpiece for an ornament.”
“Hush, Tom,” the girl said. “Will you help him?”
“For my own satisfaction, not because I am inclined to play the Samaritan to such a fellow. I’ll lend the helping hand.”
CHAPTER V
WHAT CAME OF IT
Queerly as this man acted, Tom Swift could not have left either him or his car on the road and in the lurch. He would have felt himself to be as mean as the half intoxicated chauffeur from the Norwalk garage.
Besides, the young fellow knew without her telling him that Mary would expect him to do all he could in the emergency, and Mary’s opinion was, of course, of the first importance to Tom. While the stranger sat on the bank of the ditch with his baggage about him, not offering to lift his hand to aid, the young inventor planned and put into execution a method of rescuing the mired automobile.
He had a small ax in the tool box of the electric runabout. With this he cut a green, tough sapling about as big around as his shank. This he used to pry the nose of the stranger’s motor-car out of the mud.
He used the pry to break down the edge of the ditch, too, and finally he used a couple of nonskid chains to tackle the two cars together, and with the power of his own machine, used very skilfully, he finally dragged the other car to the highway.
Meanwhile the owner of that car sat placidly, smoking little, strong-smelling cigarettes which he rolled himself with dextrous fingers, and watched the work quite impersonally. Mary disapproved of cigarettes in any case and she whispered to Tom that she didn’t know but she was sorry that she had urged him to help the strange man!