Quick! Dive into our cab."
He's a little heavy on his feet, Mr. Ellins is, and someway he manages
to get himself hung up on the cab door. Anyway, Auntie must have seen
us doin' the wild scramble, and got suspicious; for, just as they got
alongside, she pounds on the front window, shouts something at the
driver, and instead of stoppin' the 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.
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