"Will you please listen, sir, and see if you hear a buzz when I turn her
over?" requested the chauffeur.

"I don't hear nothing," was the verdict.

"I'm sorry, but you'll have to take another cab," then said the man. "My
coil's gone back on me."

McCarthy impatiently descended, entered the next taxi in line, and
repeated the same experience. By now the other chauffeurs, noticing the
predicament of their brethren, were anxiously and perspiringly at work.
Not an engine answered the call of the road! A passing truck driver,
grinning from ear to ear, drove slowly down the line, dealing out the
ancient jests rescued for the occasion from an oblivion to which the
perfection of the automobile had consigned them.

McCarthy added his mite; he was beginning to feel himself the victim of a
series of nagging impertinences, which he resented after his kind.

"If," said he, "your company would put out something on the street besides
a bunch of retired grist-mills with clock dials hitched on to them, you
might be able to give the public some service. I've got lots of time.
Don't hurry through your afternoon exercise on my account. Just buy a
lawn-mower and a chatelaine watch apiece--you'd do just as well."

By now every man had his battery box open, McCarthy left them, puzzling
over the singular failure of the electrical apparatus, which is the
nervous system of the modern automobile.

He turned into Fifth Avenue. An astonishing sight met his eyes.