They was wise to the fact that we was after ’em, too.  First Auntie would rubber back at us, and then lean forward to prod up her chauffeur.  A couple of rare old sports, them two, with no more worries for what might happen to their necks than if they’d been joy-riders speedin’ home at 3 A.M. from the Pink Lady Inn.

Me, I was holdin’ my breath and waitin’ for the grand smash.  If Auntie’s driver had stuck to a straightaway run we’d either caught ’em or smeared ourselves against a beer truck or something.  But after the first mile he takes to dodgin’.  Zip! he goes on two wheels around a corner.

“After him now!” orders Old Hickory.  “I’ll make it twenty if you don’t let him get away.”

“You’re on!” says our speed maniac, and does a carom skid into a cross street that showed he didn’t need any banked turns in his.

In and out we goes, east and west and up and down; now losin’ sight of the yellow taxi altogether, then pickin’ it up again; droppin’ behind a whole block when the traffic broke bad for us, but makin’ it up when something got in the way of the other cab.

Our gears was hummin’ a reg’lar tomcat chorus, but with the throttle wide open the motor was hittin’ on four most of the time.

Talk about your chariot race!  Say, if we’d had Ben Hur aboard he’d been down on the floor, clawin’ the mat.  Twice we scraped fenders with passin’ cars, and you could have traced every turn we made by the wheel paint we left on the curb corners.  It was a game of gasoline cross-tag.  We wasn’t merely rollin’; we was one-stepping fox-trottin’, with a few Loupovka motions thrown in for variety.  And, at that, Auntie was holdin’ the lead.

Down at Fifty-ninth, what does her driver do but swing into Fifth Avenue, right in the thick of it.  That was no bonehead play either, for if there’s any one stretch in town where you can let out absolutely reckless and get a medal for it, that’s the place.  Course, you got to take it in short spurts when you get the “go” signal, and that’s what he was doin’.  I watched him wipe both ends of a green motor bus and squeeze into a space that didn’t look big enough for a baby carriage.

“Auntie must be biddin’ up on the results, too,” I remarks to Mr. Ellins.  “There they duck through Forty-third.”

“Try Forty-fourth,” sings out Old Hickory.  “In here!”

It was a poor guess, for when we hits Sixth Avenue there’s no yellow taxi in sight.

“Wouldn’t Auntie’s game be to double back home?” I suggests.

“We’ll see,” says Old Hickory, and gives the order to beat it uptown again.

And, sure enough, just as we gets in sight of the apartment house, there’s the other taxi, with Auntie haulin’ Captain Killam out hasty.  Before we can dash up and pile out, they’ve disappeared in the vestibule.

“Looks like we’d lost out by a nose,” says I.

“Not yet,” says Old Hickory.  “I intend to see what those two mean by this.”