CHAPTER XVI.
CONCLUSION.
All that happened, after Matt received that check for $2,000, wasa good deal like a dream to him. He remembered descending into the_Sprite_ for a return to the clubhouse, and finding Ping Pong in theboat.
Where Ping Pong had come from no one seemed to know. Not much attentionhad been paid to him after Matt boarded the _Sprite_ and started forthe stake boat. Yet there the little Chinaman was, kneeling at thebulkhead of the boat, fondling the steering wheel, patting the levers,laying his yellow cheek against the gunwale, and all the while crooninga lot of heathen gibberish.
"What's the blooming idiot trying to do?" McGlory shouted.
It seemed impossible for the cowboy to do anything but yell. Hisexultation suggested noise, and he talked at the top of his lungs.
"Don't you understand, Joe?" said Lorry. "He's trying to thank the_Sprite_ for winning the race."
"Sufferin' Hottentots! Why don't he thank the king of the motor boys?"
The next moment Ping was alongside of Matt, sitting in the bottom ofthe boat and looking up at him with soulful admiration.
"Him allee same my boss," pattered Ping, catching his breath. "Heone-piecee scoot."
"Oh, tell me about that!" guffawed McGlory. "One-piecee scoot! Say,Ping's not so far wide of his trail, after all."
The next thing Matt remembered was standing in the clubhouse, in thelocker room, receiving the vociferous congratulations of the Yaharas.Before he realized what was going on, he and Lorry had been picked upon the members' shoulders.
"Three times three and a tiger for Motor Matt and Lorry!" went up ashout.
Well, the Yaharas didn't exactly raise the roof, but they came prettynear it. Matt was voted an honorary member of the club on the spot, andgiven free and perpetual use of all the clubhouse privileges.
"There isn't any one going around handing me ninety-nine-year leaseson a bunch of boats and a lot of bathing suits," caroled McGlory. "Butthen, I don't count. I'm only carrying the banner in this procession.Matt's the big high boy; but he's my pard, don't forget that."
McGlory's wail caused the Yaharas to vote him an honorary membership;and then, in order not to slight anybody, or make a misdeal whilefelicitations were being handed around, Ping was likewise voted in.
After that there was a ride to Yankee Hill in the Lorry motor car, withGus at the steering wheel; then a spread, the like of which Motor Matthad never sat down to before. A good deal was eaten, and a great manythings were said, but Matt was still in a daze.
Every time he made a move he seemed to feel the vibration of thetwenty-horse-power motor sending queer little shivers through his body.
What was the matter with him? he asked himself. Could it be possiblethat he was going to be on the sick list?
He remembered crawling into the same big brass bed with themosquito-bar canopy, and then he dropped off into dreamless sleep.
When he came to himself he was pleased to find that his brain wasclear, and that he could move around without feeling the vibrations ofthe motor.
His health was first class, after all, and he never had felt brighterin his life.
While he was dressing, McGlory and Lorry came into the room.
"What you going to do with that check, pard?" asked McGlory.
"I'm going to cash it, divide the money into three piles, give one pileto you, one to Ping, and keep the other for myself," said Matt.
"Don't be foolish, Matt," implored the cowboy. "A third of two thousandis more'n six hundred and fifty dollars. What do you suppose wouldhappen to me if all that wealth was shoved into my face?"
"Give it up," laughed Matt; "but I'm going to find out."
"And Ping! Say, the Chink will be crazy."
"I can't help that, Joe. He's entitled to the money. I wonder if youfellows realize that we've never yet paid Ping for the _Sprite_? Here'swhere he gets what's coming to him. He's full of grit, that Ping. Youought to have seen how he helped me at the burning boathouse."
"What are you going to do with Ping, Matt?" queried Lorry.
"I haven't given that a thought," said Matt, a little blankly.
"Well," suggested McGlory, "you'd better hurry up and think itover. He's walking around the servants' quarters lording it like amandarin. He says he's working for Motor Matt, and that you're theHigh Mucky-muck of everything between Waunakee and the Forbidden City.Better find something for him to do."
"We'll talk that over later," said Matt. "What about Ollie Merton?"
"You can hear all sorts of things, Matt," answered Lorry. "They say hehad a violent scene with his father, that he has squandered fifteenthousand dollars while his parents were in Europe, and that he is tobe sent to a military school where there are men who will know how tohandle him."
There was a silence between the boys for a moment, broken, at last, byMatt.
"That's pretty tough!"
"Tough?" echoed McGlory. "If Merton had what's coming to him he'd be inthe reform school. Don't waste any sympathy on him."
"Why," spoke up George, with feeling, "he's just the fellow that needssympathy. It's too bad he hasn't a Motor Matt to stand by him and helphim over the rough places he has made for himself."
George Lorry was speaking from the heart. He knew what he was talkingabout, for he had "been through the mill" himself.
THE END.