With a harsher show of authority, or perhaps merely because he was bearded--so unreasoning are the inhibitions of the young--Gashwiler stilled the tumult. The dancing died. “What’s this mean?” he repeated. “We nearly had an accident,” said the lady. “What’s this mean?” An answer of sorts could no longer be delayed. “Well, I thought I’d give Dexter a little exercise, so I saddled him up and was going to ride him around the block, when--when these kids here yelled and scared him so he ran away.” “Oh, what a story!” shouted the tots in unison. “What a bad story! You’ll go to the bad place,” intoned little Elsie. “I swear, I don’t know what’s gettin’ into you,” declared Gashwiler. “Don’t that horse get exercise enough during the week? Don’t he like his day of rest? How’d you like me to saddle you up and ride you round the block? I guess you’d like that pretty well, wouldn’t you?” Gashwiler fancied himself in this bit of sarcasm, brutal though it was. He toyed with it. “Next Sunday I’ll saddle you up and ride you round the block--see how you like that, young man.” “It was our clothesline,” said the lady. “I could tell it right off.” With a womanish tenacity she had fastened to a minor inconsequence of the outrage. Gashwiler became practical. “Well, I must say, it’s a pretty how-de-do, That horse’ll make straight back for the farm; we won’t have any delivery horse to-morrow. Sue, you get out; I’ll go down the road a piece and see if I can head him off.” “He turned the other way,” said Merton. “Well, he’s bound to head around for the farm. I’ll go up the road and you hurry out the way he went. Mebbe you can catch him before he gets out of town.” Mrs. Gashwiler descended from the car. “You better have that clothesline back by seven o’clock to-morrow morning,” she warned the offender. “Yes, ma’am, I will.” This was not spoken in a Buck Benson manner. “And say”--Gashwiler paused in turning the car--“what you doing in that outlandish rig, anyhow? Must think you’re one o’ them Wild West cowboys or something. Huh!” This last carried a sneer that stung. “Well, I guess I can pick out my own clothes if I want to.” “Fine things to call clothes, I must say. Well, go see if you can pick out that horse if you’re such a good picker-out.” Again Gashwiler was pleased with himself. He could play venomously with words. “Yes, sir,” said Merton, and plodded on up the alley, followed at a respectful distance by the Ransom kiddies, who at once resumed their vocal exercises. “He throwed you off right into the dirt, didn’t he, Merton? Mer-tun, didn’t he throw you off right into the dirt?” If it were inevitable he wished that they would come closer. He would even have taken little Woodrow by the hand. But they kept far enough back of him to require that their voices should be raised. Incessantly the pitiless rain fell upon him--“Mer-tun, he throwed you off right into the dirt, didn’t he, Merton?”