"Be lite out!" Hop Sing went on. "Me glive you click lide. Me go fast!
You see! Chop-chop!"
"All right, if the old shebang doesn't fall apart on the way," said
Jerry with a laugh, as he saw the stage which the Celestial backed out
of the shed. Certainly it looked as if it could not go many miles.
"Come on!" called Jerry to Ned, Bob and the professor, who had
remained on the platform. "I guess it's safe. The mules don't look as
if they would run away."
They piled into the aged vehicle, and Hop Sing, with a quickness that
was in surprising contrast to the indolence of the Mexican agent, put
their trunks and valises on top.
"Now we glow click, you sabe?" he said, smiling from ear to ear. "Me
know Mlister Seablury. Him number one man, top-slide," which was Hop
Sing's way of saying that anything was the very best possible.
The boys soon found that while Hop Sing might be a slow and careful
driver, it was due more to the characters of the mules, than to
anything else. The Chinese yelled at them in a queer mixture of his
own language, Mexican and American. He belabored them with a whip, and
yanked on the reins, but the animals only ambled slowly along the
sunny road, as if they had a certain time schedule, and were
determined to stick to it.
"Can't they go any faster?" asked Ned.
"Flaster?" asked Hop, innocently. "They Mlexican mules. No go flast.
Me go flast, mules not," and he began jumping up and down in his seat,
as if that would help matters any.
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