ing
at this late hour. Remember the women singing in the tents, the palm
waving over the----"

"Barry," says Ann, "something has gone wrong with your engine."

"Say not so," says Barry, steppin' on the accelerator careless.

"But I'm sure!" says Ann. "There!"

With a final cough the thing has quit cold. All Barry can seem to do
though is to jiggle the spark and look surprised. "Why--why, that's
odd!" says he.

"Yes, but sitting here isn't going to help," says Miss McLeod. "Get out
and see what's happened. Come on."

And while she's liftin' the hood and pawin' around among the wires and
things, with Barry lookin' on puzzled and helpless, I sort of wanders
about inspectin' Adelbaran curious. It's some relic, all right, and my
guess is that it was assembled by a cross-eyed mechanic from choice
pieces he rescued off'm a scrap heap. All of a sudden I notices
something peculiar.

"Say, folks," I calls out, "where's the gas tank on this chariot?"

"Why, it's on the back," says Barry.

"Well, it ain't now," says I. "It's gone."

"Gone!" echoes Ann. "The gas tank? Oh, that can't be possible."

"Take a look," says I.

And sure enough, when they comes around all they can find is the rusted
straps that held it in place and the feed pipe twisted off short.

"Ha, ha!" says Barry. "How utterly absurd. I've rattled off a lot of
things before, but never the gas tank. And I suppose that's rather
important to have."

"Quite," says Ann. "One doesn't go motoring nowadays without one."

"But--but what's to be done?" says Barry. "I simply must get to Birch
Crest in time to play the wedding march. The ceremony is to be at 4:30,
you know, and here we are----"

"I should say," breaks in Ann, "that we'd better find that tank and see
if we can't screw it on or something. It can't be far behind, of
course."

That seemed sensible enough. So we spreads out across the road and goes
scoutin' down the hill. Didn't seem likely a thing as big as that could
hide itself completely, even if it had bounced off into the bushes. But
we got clear to the bottom without findin' so much as its track. On we
goes, pawin' through the bushes, scoutin' the ditches on both sides, and
peekin' behind trees.

"Come, little tankey, come to your master," calls Barry persuasive. Then
he tries whistlin' for it.

"Well, we're sure to find it somewhere down that next hill," says Ann.
"Probably near that water-break where you gave us such a hard jolt."