Page:The Secret of the Caves.djvu/9

There was a laugh from Tony Prito, and the Hardy boys also laughed with great good-humor. Their car was a standing joke among their chums, and, as Chet Morton put it, "standing" joke described it exactly, for it seldom moved.

"Never mind," returned Joe. "That old car served its purpose, anyway. We used it only as bait."

"It was mighty good bait," said Tony. "You caught some big fish with that old crate."

"It has earned its keep," Frank called back. "We're going to put it on a pension and let it stay in our garage for the rest of its life, without charge."

The boys were referring to a roadster that the Hardy lads had purchased out of their savings some time previous. It was a car that proved the old axiom that beauty is only skin deep, for although it glittered with nickel and paint and although its lines were trim and smooth, its inner workings were utterly beyond the comprehension of Bayport mechanics. For a few weeks after its purchase the car ran, eccentrically enough, but still it ran. Then, one day, for no apparent reason, it gave up the ghost and no amount of tinkering would prompt it even to move out of the garage.

However, as Joe had said, the car had served its purpose. The boys had picked it up