Whereupon Julius Cæsar, nodding a little more vehemently, would change from a walk to a shuffling trot and maintain the latter until, in his judgment, Jerry had forgotten his unseemly haste. It took them fully twenty minutes to reach the hotel, but the journey was filled with interest. Two small urchins tried to steal a ride and had to be dislodged with the whip by Spider; Teddy Thurston followed them for a block on Main Street and offered unsolicited advice on the subject of driving, and finally descended to sarcasm and rude jesting; Mr. Wells, emerging from the post-office, stared in alarmed surprise at the sight of his son personally conducting a load of trunks through the principal thoroughfare, and, just as they came opposite the Court House, the fire engine and hose-reel swung around the corner of Pine Street and almost demolished Julius Cæsar and the new wagon. By some stroke of good luck Jerry managed to induce Julius Cæsar aside in the nick of time and the engine passed harmlessly by about two inches from their hubs! It was at that moment that Spider deserted. He explained afterwards that he had thought he was going to be killed and had jumped for safety, but the fact that he didn’t show up again until the fire in Coakley’s cigar store on Spruce Street had been put out led the others to believe he had preferred the attractions of the fire to the labor of unloading trunks. So the new wagon entered upon a career of usefulness, proudly driven by Jerry, and protestingly pulled by Julius Cæsar, who, after months of idleness in a box-stall, infrequently interrupted by an evening jog through town in front of the side-bar buggy, could have held forth eloquently on the subject of cruelty to aged horses had he been able to talk boy-language! At the end of a week Tom and Willard found that, after paying for feed for the horse and a dollar and a half to Jerry for his services, they had profited to the extent of four dollars and twenty-five cents, at which rate, as Willard pointed out, the wagon would be paid for in a month!