Gus Wilson slammed the telephone receiver back on
the hook and turned to his partner with a grin. "Well, Doc says they're
biting up there at the lake, at last. I think tomorrow I'll take that day
off I've been talking about so long. Think you can hold the fort without
me, Joe?"
On the other side of the Model Garage office, Joe
Clark looked up from his ledger. "Sure, Gus," he said. "That new man,
Harry, can handle any rush repair job that may come in, and if he's too busy
to take care of the service end, I'll see to it that nobody drives off with
his money in his pocket and his gas tank empty."
Early next morning, Gus rolled happily away toward
the lake, sixty miles distant, where he liked to spend his infrequent
holidays fishing for bass. All morning and most of the afternoon, Joe
busied himself in the office. In the shop, Harry sang "You're A
Sweetheart." In a voice that ranged uncertainly from deep bass to high
tenor, as he worked at a leisurely pace over a valve-grinding job,
occasionally interrupting his efforts-but not the vocal effects-to answer
the summons of a horn honking out by the gas pump.
Up to six o'clock, the biggest repair job that had
come their way had been putting a new fan belt on a cigarette salesman's
sedan. But then Prof. Thomas Clapp, the principal of the local high school
and the town's prize grouch, drove his four-year-old coupe up to the repair
shop door, and peace and quiet departed from the Model Garage.
"See what's the matter with this diabolical car,
young man!" the customer snapped at Harry. "It's been driving me mad all
day. Sometimes it starts as easily as it ever did, and sometimes it takes
me ten minutes to get it going. It will run smoothly for a few miles, and
then the motor will start coughing and sputtering, and sometimes stop. It
just did that a mile down the road, and I've been fifteen minutes getting
here. Be quick, young man- have important business this evening!"
Harry checked the high-tension coil, the
distributor points, and the carburetor adjustment. Then he cleaned the
spark plugs. Everything seemed all right. When he stepped on the starter,
the engine took off promptly, and idled smoothly as he climbed out. "She's
O.K. now," he assured the impatient customer.
Growling "put it on my bill," Clapp backed out of
the shop, Harry watched him as he drove up the road without the engine
missing a beat. Then, just as the mechanic was turning back into the shop,
he heard the coughing start again, and saw the car head in to the side of
the road. Cutting across a vacant lot, he arrived just in time to meet the
professor as he got out, very red in the face and snorting "Incompetent!"
and various other epithets highly uncomplimentary to the Model Garage.
With some difficulty Harry got the engine started
and nursed the car back into the shop. He made another check that disclosed
nothing wrong. In the shop, the engine ran sweetly.
At this critical point, Joe came into the shop to
try to get an oil slick on the troubled waters by assuring the exasperated
customer that Harry soon would located and remedy the trouble. Harry,
however, scratched his head and stared at the car helplessly. "Just like
taking a kid to the dentist," he said with a puzzled grin. "Soon as you get
her there, the tooth stops aching."
"Spare me your pitiable attempts of humor, young
man!" Clapp barks. "And get my car started!"
"Guess the valves must be sticking," Harry
suggested, none too hopefully. With his fingers all thumbs under the
professor's baleful glare, he took the engine head off and started to check
the valves.
While this was going on, another horn honked
outside, and an excited woman fluttered into the shop, "Oh Mr. Clark!" she
cried. "The strangest thing has happened! I do think this used car
that my husband bought yesterday is bewitched! It runs beautifully,
except when I make a right hand turn and then the motor falters and
sputters, and on one wide curve it absolutely stopped! But I'm sure
that Mr. Wilson will be able to fix it-my husband always says that Mr.
Wilson is so wonderful!"
"Gus isn't here just now, Mrs. Miller," Joe told
her. "But Harry, here, will fix up your trouble as soon as he has Professor
Clapps car in shape. If you would come back in an hour or so-"
"Oh, I've had supper, and haven't anything
particular to do," Mrs. Miller assured him. "I'll just, sit around, if you
don't mind."
So Mrs. Miller waited around, keeping up a
continuous flow of conversation, while Harry puzzled and sweated, and the
professor fumed and snorted.
Joe Clark was in a dither when he went back into
the office to answer the summons of the jingling telephone bell.
"Model Garage?" Relief flooded into Joe's mind as
he heard his partner's voice at the other end of the wire. "Say, Joe, I'm
laid up about fifteen miles up the highway. You'll have to send Harry with
the wrecker to tow me in."
"What's - what's the matter?" Joe sputtered,
aghast at this new complication.
"Darned if I know!" Gus said disgustedly. "My
engine heated up, and I stopped to see what was the trouble. Then my flash
light went dead, and I can't get going again. It's got me stumped. Get
Harry started!"
Joe Clark will never forget the hour he waited
while Mrs. Miller babbled about her bewitched car, and Professor Clapp paced
the shop floor and growled his opinion of automobile mechanics in general
and the staff of the Model Garage in particular.
At last, the wrecker stopped before the shop door
and Gus came in, his nose a fiery red from sunburn, and a grin on his face.
"'Evenin', Mrs. Miller, 'Evenin,' Professor Clapp!" he greeted them
cheerily. "Guess I picked the wrong day to go fishing! Now, Harry, get the
head back on that engine, and I'll take the professor's car out for a little
spin, and see if I can spot the trouble."
He backed the car out, and returned in less than
two minutes. The engine was missing badly as he turned in at the door, but
ran smoothly as soon as he stopped the car in the shop. "Let her run," he
directed Harry. "Now, you give her 'road conditions' while I take a look."
Harry jumped up and down on the running board while Gus peered intently
under the hood. In less than a minute he cocked his head, listened closely,
and signaled Harry to stop the engine. "It's in the distributor," he said,
confidently. "Now we'll soon have her licked!"
Quickly but methodically he began to take the
distributor apart. "Here she is!" He took out the post to which the
high-tension and condenser wires were connected, and held it up for them to
see. "Notice that fiber washer that is supposed to insulate the post? Part
of it is gone, and what's left is cracked and so darned soaked with grease
and oil that it shorts through part of the time-specially when the car hits
a bump."
He replaced the damaged washer with a new one,
reassembled the distributor, and turned to the professor.
"Ten cents for material, and about three hours of
Harry's time," he said.
"But you won't find the time on your bill. We'll
charge that up to experience."
Professor Clapp got into his car. Then he pointed
a trembling finger at Harry. "That - that incompetent bungler - " he began.
Gus laughed, "Harry's doing all right," he said.
"Everybody's got to learn. I had to, professor - and so did you!"
He turned to Mrs. Miller. "Now what's all this I
hear about you having a bewitched car?"
For the eleventh time, Mrs. Miller told her tale of
woe. "Guess I'd better take another little spin," Gus said, climbing into
her car. This time he was gone for ten minutes. When he got back he drove
into the shop. "You're right, Mrs. Miller," he said. "She runs fine as
silk on the straight, but falters every time you take right-hand turn.
Well, Harry - what do you make of this one?"
"Fuel line?" guessed Harry. "Distributor points?"
"Wiring system?"
"Might be any of them," Gus agreed.
"But why should making a right-hand turn affect
them? My guess is that it's the carburetor. Let's have a look."
He took the carburetor apart examined the float
carefully, and held it up. "Here's your witch, Mrs. Miller. See that mess
of solder on the float? The original owner of your car had the float
soldered, for some reason. He did the job himself, or had it done by
someone else who was a sloppy workman-anyway, there was quite a lot of
excess solder left on the float. That weights it down a good deal, but not
enough to cause any trouble while the car is running straight. But your
carburetor is mounted on the left-hand side, so that whenever you make a
right-hand turn, centrifugal force pulls the gas in the carburetor toward
its front. Then the extra weight on the float makes it sink down so far
that it chokes up the carburetor, and your engine misses. On a long curve,
sometimes, it stalls. Get a new float, Joe."
"I think you're just too wonderful, Mr. Wilson!"
Mrs. Miller cooed, after Gus had backed her car out and headed it toward the
road for her. "Centrifugal force - I'll have to try to remember that, so I
can tell Mr. Miller what the trouble was."
As she drove away, Joe breathed a deep sigh of
relief. "hew!" Harry whistled. "I could have done a lot better if I hadn't
had to listen to that line of chatter. And, as for the professor, he ought
to change to anti-knock."
"That's all in the day's work," said Joe. The
little bookkeeper turned to his partner. "Hey, Gus, what's the matter with
your car? Never knew you to get hung up on the road before!"
"And is my face red!" Gus said. "Haul her in, will
you, Harry? As I told you, I was driving along at about forty-five when I
noticed that my engine was heating up mighty fast. I stopped to see what
was wrong, and before I'd found the trouble my flash light went dead. And
then I couldn't get started again. All right, Harry, let's give her the
once-over."
They quickly checked the battery, ignition, spark
plugs, wiring, and fuel line. Everything seemed to be in order. But the
engine was dead.
As Gus leaned over with his head half under the
hood, his nostrils twitched, and he sniffed several times. Then he walked
to the rear end of the car, unscrewed the cap of the gasoline tank, sniffed
again, and began to laugh.
"Well," demanded Joe, considerably mystified,
"what's the joke?"
"The joke's on me!" Gus said, still laughing.
"Kerosene. Kerosene in my gas tank! Let's see, now - sure, that's how it
happened. Old Doc Brown, up at the lake, told me that he was short of gas
for his gasoline cook stove, so I siphoned a few gallons out of my tank for
him. Then, on the way down, I noticed I was getting pretty low. I was
taking a short cut over a dirt road, so I stopped at a crossroads general
store where I'd got gas once or twice before. They haven't got a pump -
keep their gasoline in a barrel under a shed back of the store, and pour it
into your tank out of a gallon measure. A boy came out to wait on me, and
now I remember that he seemed new to his job. I told him to put in just two
gallons, because I didn't want to sit there while he made five trips back to
the barrel."
"See what happened? They had a barrel of kerosene
next to their barrel of gasoline, and he tapped the wrong barrel! My engine
started all right on the gasoline in the carburetor. And it kept on
running-only when it got to using the mixture of gasoline and kerosene it
heated up in a hurry. When I stopped the engine to try to locate the
trouble, there wasn't enough gasoline in the mixture of gasoline and
kerosene in the carburetor to get it going again. No harm done-except that
I'll have one sweet job cleaning out the kerosene in the morning. Right
now, I'm going to call it a day!"
"Me too," said Joe. "And what a day!"
END
