through."

"Stop her, then. I'll take the wheel the rest of the way. Want to travel
a bit to-night."

The chauffeur, as if this exchange were something he had been expecting,
made no demur, and a moment later, with Woodbury at the wheel, the motor
began to hum again in a gradually increasing crescendo. Two or three
motor-police glanced after the car as it snapped about corners with an
ominous skid and straightened out, whining, on the new street; but in
each case, having made a comfortable number of arrests that day, they
had little heart for the pursuit of the grey monster through that chill
mist.

Past Brooklyn, with a country road before them, Woodbury cut out the
muffler and the car sprang forward with a roar. A gust of increasing
wind whipped back to Maclaren, for the wind-shield had been opened so
that the driver need not look through the dripping glass and mingling
with the wet gale were snatches of singing.

The chauffeur, partly in understanding and partly from anxiety,
apparently, caught the side of the seat in a firm grip and leaned
forward to break the jar when they struck rough places. Around an elbow
turn they went with one warning scream of the Klaxon, skidded horribly
at the sharp angle of the curve, and missed by inches a car from the
opposite direction.

They swept on with the startled yell of the other party ringing after
them, drowned at once by the crackling of the exhaust. Maclaren raised a
furtive hand to wipe from his forehead a moisture which was not