"Oh, Purt! where did you get it?" cried Lance Darby.
"You're fixed up to flag a freight, with all that red on you," said Chet.
"And where _did_ you get that gorgeous sash, Mr. Sweet?" demanded "Bobby" Hargrew, who was a tease by nature, and had the sharpest tongue of any girl at Central High.
"Oh, now, Miss Clara," said Purt Sweet, carefully climbing into the seat directly behind the twins. "This is the very latest thing--weally! I sent clear to New York for it. You see, it's not so stiff and hard looking as a leather belt. This--er--lends a softness to the whole costume that is--er--quite unobtainable with a belt."
"Oh, gee!" gasped Bobby. "It's soft enough, all right, all right!" and the rest laughed as they piled into the machine.
Purt sat with his back to the twins, and was explaining to the girl beside him that he did not mind riding backward at all. Bobby was still on the ground, and as Dora and Dorothy looked down at her they saw the mischievous one suddenly reach up her thumb and finger and pick at a little frayed place upon the edge of Purt's beautiful sash.
The thing was knitted loosely of some kind of mercerized cotton, and when Bobby seized the end of a broken strand the sash began to unravel with marvelous rapidity. She grinned up at the twins delightedly, and continued to pull on the thread.
"All aboard, young folks!" cried Mr. Purcell. "You ready forward, there, Mr. Chetwood?"
"All right," returned Chet, tripping his self-starter.
Mr. Purcell stooped to crank up his big machine. Bobby, her eyes dancing, also stooped beside the front wheel for a moment, and then whisked into her seat, facing Purt Sweet. But the twins saw what she had done. She had fastened the end of the crimson thread to the head of a bolt upon the wheelbox.
"All right, Bennie!" said Mr. Purcell, stepping back and waving his hand. The big machine began to tremble and shake, and then they pulled out behind the Belding car. There was a lot of noise, and laughter, and fun; but nobody seemed so hilarious as Clara Hargrew and the Lockwood twins.
"Can't you keep your eyes off Purt, Bobby?" demanded the girl sitting next to the Sweet boy. "What's the matter with him?"
"No--nothing!" chortled Bobby, stuffing her handkerchief into her mouth.