other taxi veers off and goes
smokin' uptown.

"Hey!" yells Mr. Ellins to our driver. "Catch that yellow car! Ten
dollars if you catch it."

And you know it's just the chance of hearin' a few kind words like them
that these taxi pirates live for. This old coffee mill that Mr. Ellins
had hailed reckless could give out more groans and grinds and produce
less speed than any other fare trap I was ever in. The connectin' rods
was wabbly on the shaft, the gears complained scandalous, and the
hit-and-miss average of the cylinders was about 33 per cent.

But after a few preliminary jack-rabbit jumps she begun to get headway,
and the next I knew our driver was leanin' over his wheel like he was
after the Vanderbilt Cup. He must have been throwin' all his weight on
the juice button and slippin' his clutch judicious, for we sure was
breezin' some. Inside of two blocks we'd eaten up half the lead and
was tearin' uptown like a battalion chief answerin' a third alarm. I
glances at Old Hickory to see if he's gettin' nervous at some of the
close shaves; but he's braced himself in one corner, his teeth sunk
deep into his cigar and his eyes glued on that yellow taxi ahead.

They was wise to the fact that we was after 'em, too. First Auntie
would rubber back at us, and then lean forward to prod up her
chauffeur. A couple of rare old sports, them two, with no more worries
for what might happen to their necks than if they'd been joy-riders
speedin' home at 3 A.M. from the Pink Lady Inn.

Me, I was holdin' my breath and waitin' for the grand smash. If
Auntie's driver had stuck to a straightaway run we'd either caught 'em
or smeared ourselves against a beer truck or something. But after the
first mile he takes to dodgin'. Zip! he goes on two wheels around a
corner.

"After him now!" orders Old Hickory. "I'll make it twenty if you don't
let him get away."

"You're on!" says our speed maniac, and does a carom skid into a cross
street that showed he didn't need any banked turns in his.

In and out we goes, east and west and up and down; now losin' sight of
the yellow taxi altogether, then pickin' it up again; droppin' behind a
whole block when the traffic broke bad for us, but makin' it up when
something got in the way of the other cab.

Our gears was hummin' a reg'lar tomcat chorus, but with the throttle
wide open the motor was hittin' on four most of the time.

Talk about your chariot race! Say, if we'd had Ben Hur a