"'Oh, I don't know!' I answers pretty sharp. 'Get her under way, why don't you?'
"All he done was look me over some more and grin.
"'A hero! A real live gov'ment-branded hero!' he says. 'Ain't scared of nothin', I reckon--hey?'
"I never made no answer. There's some things that's too fresh to eat without salt, and I didn't have a pickle tub handy.
"'Hum!' he says again, reverend-like. 'A sure hero; scared of nothin'! Never rode in an auto afore, did you?'
"'No,' says I, peppery; 'and I don't see no present symptom of ridin' in one now. Cast off, won't you?'
"He cast off. That is to say, he hauled a nickel-plated marlinespike thing toward him, shoved another one away from him, took a twist on the steerin' wheel, the gocart coughed like a horse with the heaves, started up some sort of buzz-planer underneath, and then we begun to move.
"From the time we left my shanty at South Orham till we passed the pines at Herrin' Neck I laid back in that stuffed cockpit, feelin' as grand and tainted as old John D. himself. The automobile rolled along smooth but swift, and it seemed to me I had never known what easy trav'lin' was afore. As we rounded the bend by the pines and opened up the twelve-mile narrow white stretch of Setuckit Beach ahead of us, with the ocean on one side and the bay on t'other, I looked at my watch. We'd come that fur in thirteen minutes.
"'Land sakes!' I says. 'This is what I call movin' right along!'
"He turned round and sized me up again, like he was surprised.
"'Movin'?' says he. 'Movin'? Why, pard, we've been settin' down to rest! Out our way, if a lynchin' party didn't move faster than we've done so fur, the center of attraction would die on the road of old age. Now, my heroic college chum,' he goes on, callin' me out of my name, as usual, 'will you be so condescendin' as to indicate how we hit the trail?'
"'Hit--hit which? Don't hit nothin', for goodness' sake! Goin' the way we be, it would--'
"'Which way do we go?'
"'Right straight ahead. Keep on the ocean side, 'cause there's more hard sand there, and--hold on! Don't do that! Stop it, I tell you!'
"Them was the last rememberable words said by me durin' the next quarter of an hour. That shover man let out a hair-raisin' yell, hauled the nickel marlinespike over in its rack, and squeezed a rubber bag that was spliced to the steerin' wheel. There was a half dozen toots or howls or honks from under our bows somewheres, and then that automobile hopped off the ground and commenced to fly. The fust hop landed me on my knees in the cockpit, and there I stayed. 'Twas the most fittin' position fur my frame of mind and chimed in fust-rate with the general religious drift of my thoughts.
"The Cut-through is two mile or more from Herrin' Neck. 'Cordin' to my count we hit terra cotta just three times in them two miles.
The fust hit knocked my hat off. The second one chucked me up so high I looked back for the hat, and though we was a half mile away from it, it hadn't had time to git to the ground. And all the while the horn was a-honkin', and Billings was a-screechin, and the sand was a-flyin'. Sand! Why, say! Do you see that extra bald place on the back of my head? Yes? Well, there was a two-inch thatch of hair there afore that sand blast ground it off.
"When I went up on the third jounce I noticed the Cut-through just ahead. Billings see it, too, and--would you b'lieve it?--the lunatic stood up, let go of the wheel with one hand, takes off his hat and waves it, and we charge down across them wet tide flats like death on the woolly horse, in Scriptur'.
"'Hi, yah! Yip!' whoops Billings. 'Come on in, fellers! The water's fine! Yow! Y-e-e-e! Yip!'
"For a second it left off rainin' sand, and there was a typhoon of mud and spray. I see a million of the prettiest rainbows--that is, I cal'lated there was a million; it's awful hard to count when you're bouncin' and prayin' and drowndin' all to once. Then we sizzed out of the channel, over the flats on t'other side, and on toward Setuckit.
"Never mind the rest of the ride. 'Twas all a sort of constant changin' sameness. I remember passin' a blurred life-savin' station, with three--or maybe thirty--blurred men jumpin' and laughin' and hollerin'. I found out afterwards that they'd been on the lookout for the bombshell for half an hour. Billings had told around town what he was goin' to do to me, and some kind friend had telephoned it to the station. So the life-savers was full of anticipations. I hope they were satisfied. I hadn't rehearsed my part of the show none, but I feel what the parson calls a consciousness of havin' done my best.
"'Whoa, gal!' says Billings, calm and easy, puttin' the helm hard down. The auto was standin' still at last. Part of me was hangin' over the lee rail. I could see out of the part, so I knew 'twas my head. And there alongside was my fish shanty at the P'int, goin' round and round in circles.
"I undid the hatch of the cockpit and fell out on the sand. Then I scrambled up and caught hold of the shanty as it went past me.
That fool shover watched me, seemin'ly interested.
"'Why, pard,' says he, 'what's the matter? Do you feel pale? Are you nervous? It ain't possible that you're scared? Honest, now, pard, if it weren't that I knew you were a genuine gold-mounted hero I'd sure think you was a scared man.'
"I never said nothin'. The scenery and me was just turnin' the mark buoy on our fourth lap.
"'Dear me, pard!' continues Billings. 'I sure hope I ain't scared you none. We come down a little slow this evenin', but to-morrow night, when I take you back home, I'll let the old girl out a little.'
"I sensed some of that. And as the shanty had about come to anchor, I answered and spoke my mind.
"'When you take me back home!' I says. 'When you do! Why, you crack-brained, murderin' lunatic, I wouldn't cruise in that hell wagon of yours again for the skipper's wages on a Cunarder. No, nor the mate's hove in!'
"And that shover he put his head back and laughed and laughed and laughed."
