CHAPTER XXIV

DESERTED


Mr. Swiper lost no time upon hearing Peter's startling announcement.
Rushing to the back of the car he confirmed the information by a
frantically hurried inspection, keeping up a running fire of curses the
while. For a manual training teacher he was singularly profane.

Nor did he tarry to administer any corporeal rebukes, more than to send
poor Peter reeling as he brushed him aside with imprecations in his
flight. Since the auto had been so generously handed to him by a kind
boy scout, perhaps the loss of it was not such a shock as it might
otherwise have been. There were other autos.

Mr. Swiper saved himself and that was his chief concern. He was not
going to take any chances with Ham Sanders. In the last few miles of
their inglorious journey, Pee-wee had been trouble enough to him and how
to get rid of that redoubtable youngster had been a question. So Mr.
Swiper paused not to make an issue of Peter Piper's audacious act. He
withdrew into the shelter of the woods and in the fullness of time to
the more secure shelter of an Illinois penitentiary where he was entered
under the name of Chick Swiper, alias Chick the Speeder, alias Chick the
Gent, alias the Car King, alias Jack Skidder--perhaps because he was so
slippery.

In his official pedigree there was nothing about his being a manual