about nine A.M.
Gibb Ogle , our leading pessimist , hastens to inform him that very likely the roads are impassable , because the Highway Commissioners have been improving them . Out our way road improvement consists of tearing the roads out with a scraper and heaping them up in the middle . It takes a road almost a year to recover from a good , thorough case of improvement . The stranger goes on dejectedly , and about nine A.M. young Andy Link roars in with his father 's car , which he has taken away from the old man and converted into a racer by the simple process of taking off the muffler and increasing the noise to one hundred miles per hour . Andy declares that there has been no rain to the northwest and that he has done sixty miles already this morning , but ca n't get his carbureter to working properly , as usual . By this time several owners and a dozen critics have assembled , and the morning debate on gasoline versus motor spirit takes place . It ends a tie and both sides badly winded , when Pelty Amthorne drives in , very mad .