"He'll have nice eat--eh?" came a query in a slightly foreign accent. "Us will too, eh?" A man's deep, sonorous voice from up in front answered in the affirmative. Nickie Fallon bent closer to Skippy's buzzing ears and explained, "That guy's name's Barker an' the one drivin's his pal, Frost. They're our pals from now on. Say, what a break they gave us!" Skippy was deeply puzzled. He couldn't seem to make it out at all. "Those Greeks," he asked wearily, "didn't I hear one of 'em just now?" "Shorty and Biff? Sure. They're along. Dippy was scared an' wouldn't come. But I knew you was regular so when you went out me'n Shorty brought you 'long seein' you wasn't hurt bad. Glad, huh?" "How 'e be glad when you ain't tell 'eem!" Fallon laughed. "S'right, Biff. Here I'm thinkin' the kid knows all about it." He leaned over Skippy again: "I didn't have no chance puttin' you wise on the way up an' I go an' forget you been out cold since we hit the ditch." Skippy felt a chill up and down his spine at this reminder. "We hit somethin'--so it was a ditch, huh? Gee! I got hurt then, huh?" "Yeah," Fallon replied laconically, "but not's bad as them bulls. The three hadda take it--the driver couldn't put up no fight. Dippy was bruised too, but not so bad but what he could say no when we told him he could come with us an' beat his rap. So Barker says not to bother 'cause there wasn't no time for arguin' an' another car might come along." "Barker--Frost--" Skippy asked puzzled, "they're your friends, huh?" "_Friends!_ I'll say so! Cheese, ain't it a friend that gets us away so easy as this? Lissen, kid--it shows how friendly when I'm waitin' in the cooler this afternoon an' along comes this Frost an' he says he gets in by sayin' he's my cousin comin' to say so-long. Then he says how he heard the long stretch they gimme an' that he don't think they gimme no break. So then he talks like a Dutch uncle an' says how he an' his pal Barker can give us a break. We don't do nothin' he says. Him an' Barker'll find out somehow what time we're gonna take the ride to the jug. An' they do." "Oh!" Skippy groaned as the car bumped his head painfully. "Feelin' all right, kid?" Fallon asked sympathetically. "Yeah," Skippy answered half-heartedly. "It's just the bumps that make my head ache." "We'll soon be there," called the sonorous voice which Skippy recognized as Barker's. He raised himself painfully from Fallon's accommodating lap and sat upright in the seat. The Greek named Biff was sitting on his left and on the end of the seat sat his partner Shorty. Both were smiling at him anxiously, particularly Biff who had a rather set mirthfulness in his round face.