Recognizing the annual football match as intended solely to replenish the town coffers, the thrifty townsfolk of Rye, with bicycles and red flags, were, as usual, and regardless of the speed at which it moved, levying tribute on every second car that entered their hospitable boundaries. But before the Scarlet Car reached Rye, small boys of the town, possessed of a sporting spirit, or of an inherited instinct for graft, were waiting to give a noisy notice of the ambush. And so, fore-warned, the Scarlet Car crawled up the main street of Rye as demurely as a baby-carriage, and then, having safely reached a point directly in front of the police station, with a loud and ostentatious report, blew up another tire. 

 "Well," said Sam crossly, "they can't arrest US for speeding." 

 "Whatever happens," said his sister, "take it as a joke." 

 Two miles outside of Stamford, Brother Sam burst into open mutiny. 

 "Every car in the United States has passed us," he declared.  "We won't get there, at this rate, till the end of the first half. Hit her up, can't you, Billy?" 

 "She seems to have an illness," said Winthrop unhappily.  "I think I'd save time if I stopped now and fixed her." 

 Shamefacedly Fred and he hid themselves under the body of the car, and a sound of hammering and stentorian breathing followed. Of them all that was visible was four feet beating a tattoo on the road. Miss Forbes got out Winthrop's camera, and took a snap-shot of the scene. 

 "I will call it," she said, "The Idle Rich." 

 Brother Sam gazed morosely in the direction of New Haven. They had halted within fifty yards of the railroad tracks, and as each special train, loaded with happy enthusiasts, raced past them he groaned. 

 "The only one of us that showed any common sense was Ernest," he declared,  "and you turned him down. I am going to take a trolley to Stamford, and the first train to New Haven." 

 "You are not," said his sister; "I will not desert Mr. Winthrop, and you cannot desert me." 

 Brother Sam sighed, and seated himself on a rock. 

 "Do you think, Billy," he asked, "you can get us to Cambridge in time for next year's 

 Prev. P 5/59 next