With frantic haste he hitched her up. The Callahans, for a wonder, had left her harness intact. Then Speedy mounted to the driver's platform and cautiously backed Nellie up until they were in the street and clear of the shed. He turned the car around so that it was facing west.
"Gid-dap," shouted Speedy, slapping Nellie over her broad back with the looped end of the lines.
"Come along, Nellie. Speed it up, old girl," he urged.
The horse broke into a trot.
"Faster, Nellie," Speedy pleaded. She obeyed. Nellie had once been a fire engine horse and she seemed to sniff a whiff of the old days. Soon she was running.
A block or two on his journey, people on the sidewalk began to stare at the strange sight of the decrepit old horse car, the speeding nag with the flapping straw hat over her ears and the excited youth who was urging her on. But they did not stare for long. New Yorkers are used to strange sights. "Probably an ad for a new movie," they told each other. "What won't those people think of next!"
"Whoa, Methuselah," came a heavy, authoritative voice as Speedy was about to cross a bisecting street. One of those aggravating traffic cops was again halting his speeding parade. Speedy groaned anew. Not even horse cars that simply must break all speed records were safe from traffic cops. He would have to find some way of circumventing this. He looked anxiously about him. Finally the
