him a ungrateful look and grabs hold of the crank. After
turnin' the thing ninety-four times without gettin' nothin' but a
blister on my thumb, I quit.

"Nothin' stirrin'," I remarks to I. Markowitz.

"Believe me, that's funny!" he tells me, shakin' his head like he had
ball bearin's in his neck.

"Ain't it?" I says. "Are you positive they's a motor inside there?"

He makes a funny little noise in his throat and not knowin' him long, I
didn't know what he meant. There's a big husky in overalls walkin' by
with plenty of medium oil on his face and a monkey wrench in his hand.
I. Markowitz hisses at him, and they exchange jokes in some foreign
language for a minute and then the new-comer grabs hold of that crank
like the idea was to see if he could upset the car in three twists. He
gives it a turn, and I guess the Kid had got to monkeyin' around them
little buttons on the steerin' wheel because it went off like a cannon.
First, there was a great big bang! And then a cloud of smoke rolls out
of the back of the car and the bird that had wound the thing up come to
in an oil can, half way across the floor. The Kid fell off the seat
and me and I. Markowitz busted the hundred yard record to the front
door.

"That was a rotten trick, wasn't it?" I asks him when we stopped.

"What do you talk tricks?" he pants.

"Why," I tells him, "puttin' that dynamite in the hood!"

"That wasn't dynamite," he says. "She only backfired a little. I
wouldn't be surprised if it turned out there was, now, too much air in
the carburetor. The only reason I ran out here is because I seen it
passin' a friend of mine and--"

"I know," I cuts him off. "I seen it too!"

We go back to the Kid and his play toy, and he's leanin' up against the
side of it rubbin' his shoulder and scowlin'.

"What kind of stuff was that, eh?" he growls at I. Markowitz. "I liked
to broke my neck!"

"'Snothin'!" says he, pattin' the Kid on the back and smilin'. "You
could do that with a new car, you could take my word for it. It's all,
now, experience!" He looks around. "Herschel!" he hollers.

It turns out that Herschel is the guy that had wound the thing up, and
he gets out of the oil can and comes over, mutterin' to himself and
glarin' at all of us. He takes off the hood and stalls around it with
a hammer and a monkey wrench for a minute, still mutterin' away, and
you could see he wasn't wishin' us no luck. Finally, he puts the hood
on again a