“That’s the way I’d expect them to go, unless they got all smeared up with cylinder oil,” growled Tom.
“Listen to the smart Aleck! I mean, wouldn’t you be some scared?”
“Hey?” Tom’s usually gruff voice took on an odd note of shrillness. “Hey?” he repeated, with a rising inflection. “Scared of what?”
“Why, to take that big car out alone.”
Tom’s forbearance was not proof against such insinuations.
“Well, I should rather say not!” he exclaimed, hotly. “I’d drive from Kenosha to Kingswood without the quiver of an eye.”
“Hear—hear!—A new way to propel a motor car just discovered by Chauffeur Clifton: no clutch; no gasoline required; ‘without the quiver of an eye’ runs a car three hundred miles.”
“Oh, you’re mighty brilliant,” snapped Tom.
“Then don’t try to light on me. Are you going to be a flopper, Clifton?”
“A flopper! What in the mischief is that?”