To Betty the little car was almost alive, and she talked to it as she would have to some loved horse or dog.  She scrubbed it and scoured it and shined it so that it always looked like a brand new car.

“Hey, look out!” cried Mollie, for Betty, not noticing her and being a little worried about the sound of the engine, had backed the small car down the drive and almost into Mollie’s big one.  “What kind of driving do you call that?  Do you want to buy me a new mudguard?”

“Oh, pardon me,” said Betty, laughing back at her.  “You were so small and insignificant, I came near not seeing you.”

“Well, you would have felt me in another minute,” grumbled Mollie, as she shut off the engine and got out of the car.  “What’s the idea of your little peanut, anyway?  Thought you were going to ride in a regular car.”

“That’s why I chose mine,” Betty laughed back impishly, still intent on the sound of the engine.

It was part of their fun to be always throwing insults at each other’s car but the thrusts were invariably good-natured.

Only once had there threatened to be any trouble between the chums on account of rivalry over the cars.  That had been when Mollie had taken Betty’s “dare” to a race and Betty’s little roadster had won the day, racing like a streak of light along the country road and leaving Mollie’s high-powered but more clumsy car far behind.

But Mollie had taken her defeat like the little sport she was—­ even though it must be admitted she had been considerably disappointed and taken aback by her failure—­ and in her ever since there had been a great respect for Betty’s car.

But now she eyed with impatience the bent figure of the Little Captain as she still leaned over the wheel, her ear tuned to the purr of the engine.

“For goodness’ sake, what’s the matter with you?” she cried.  “I thought you were the one who was in a hurry to be off and now look at you—­ sitting there like——­”

“Engine is missing,” Betty informed her briskly.  “Guess I had better have a look—­”

“If you start fussing with bolts and screws now, you can count me out,” said Mollie, resolutely climbing back into her car.  “It is ten o’clock already, and we won’t be home before night if we don’t hurry.”

“Oh, all right,” laughed Betty.  “But if the car gives out before we get back don’t blame me, that’s all.”

“It would give me the greatest of pleasure,” said Mollie with a diabolical chuckle as her machine moved off down the street, “to have every one in Deepdale see me towing your poor little flivver through the town.”

“Huh,” sang back Betty scornfully as the roadster responded eagerly to her touch, “they will have a great deal better chance of seeing me in the lead with your great big jumbo tottering feebly at the end of a rope.”

They picked up Amy and Grace on the way and were soon flying swiftly down the road in the direction of Professor Dempsey’s tree-surrounded home.