“Ach! Brawn is not to be scorned,” said the man, when the motor-car stood upon its four wheels on the road. “It is not so good like brains—no, no. But if one has not the brains and the learning, it is well to be a mechanic, yes?”
Mary grew rosy-red at that. She considered it an insult to Tom Swift. She might have said something sharp, but her friend interposed, with a grin:
“They say that a man with brains alone on a desert island will live where a dull man, possessing only strength, would die. But I bet a stupid man with good muscles will live better in the haunts of civilization than a penniless man of brains. What would you do if you had been marooned here without money and nobody to help you?”
“Ach! You are, perhaps, a philosopher?” grumbled the man.
“You don’t have to possess much book education to be that,” laughed Tom. “Well, sir, you get in the runabout with the young lady. She can drive. I’ll try to bring your car along behind. Where are you stopping in Shopton?” he added, as the man began to gather his various bags and bundles and pack them into the runabout until there was scarcely room for the girl to reach the pedals with her feet.
“Is there not a hotel, no?”
“The Shopton House. A commercial hotel.”
“I will try it. This is one vacation. I have but one thing to do while I am avay from New York. I need the change and fresh air, or I vould never come to a place like this in answer to any call. No!”
“I wonder what and who he is,” thought Tom Swift, as Mary finally started the runabout and he, himself, climbed into the other car.
The car had been pretty well shaken up by its plunge into the ditch; and the engine balked several times before Tom managed to get it to town. Therefore Mary got far ahead of him with the car’s owner.