But my trotters were frightened at different objects at the same moment—one at a snail peacefully pursuing his way across the road, and the other at a butterfly winging his wabbling flight along the ditch. At once they became unmanageable, and vied with each other in extravagant antics. From the first the ladies had no very exalted opinion of my manner of handling the lines. Even before we were well under way I had the misfortune to run down a calf. Then a Newfoundland dog thought to stop the buggy by taking hold of one of the hubs, but he made a mis-dive, and shoving his head between the spokes, kept us company for twenty rods without any effort on his part whatever. I also ran over a wheelbarrow loaded with bricks (the Irishman escaped with a crushed hat), and overthrew an apple woman’s stand while turning a corner. I can yet hear ringing in my ear the shouts and execrations of the old vender, when she saw the wheels mounting her baskets and squeezing the cider out of her choicest bellflowers. Until I passed the next street I could look back and see the old lady in her embarrassing situation. There she sat, caught under the broken table, and kicking about wildly in frantic efforts to free herself, while her bonnet was knocked askew by the fall and stuck on one side of her head in the most jaunty position imaginable. [Illustration: SLIGHTLY EMBARRASSING.] At this point the horses became more frightened, and commenced cutting up strange didos. Things were getting badly mixed, so much so that one horse turned his head to the dasher. The ladies took a hurried view of the situation, and voting me an incompetent driver, began to desert me by back-action movements over the rear end of the buggy. [Illustration: BADLY MIXED.] I shall always think that I could have managed the animals without any difficulty if they had not both been frightened at the same time. But with one bucking like a Mexican plug, evidently bent on crawling under the buggy, and the other seemingly striving to reach the stars by an invisible ladder, they were indeed difficult to control. My companions concluded they had sufficient buggy riding for one day, and took the cars into town, while I patched up the harness as best I could, and returned to the livery stable, fully concurring with the women folks that as a driver I was not a success, and that hereafter promenades would suit me better. [Illustration] SECOND SIGHT. A singular case of second sight occurred in the western part of the city last evening while I was there. An old Irishman named McSweegan, who lives in that locality, is the possessor of a multiplying pair of eyes. That is, they have the strange faculty of making two objects of one. This natural endowment is particularly distinguishable after he has been indulging freely in strong decoctions of old rye.