"Huh!" says Aunty. "It's a joke, is it? At least you're not afraid to tell the truth. I guess I want to have a little private talk with you. Who's this other young man?" "This is Professor McCabe," says Dyke. "He's a friend of mine." "Let him come along, too," says Aunty. "Perhaps he can supply what you leave out." And, say, the old girl knew what she wanted and when she wanted it, all right! There was no bunkoin' her out of it, either. Mr. Mallory leads her out to his brougham and does his best to shoo her in with him and Mrs. Mallory and away from Dyke; but it was no go. "I will ride up with Dyckman and his friend," says she. "And I want to go in one of those new automobile cabs I've heard so much about." "Good! We'll get one, Aunty," says Dyke, and then he whispers in my ear, "Slip around the corner and call for Jerry Powers. Number 439. He can make a taxi take hurdles and water jumps." I don't know whether it was luck or not, but Jerry was on the stand with the tin flag up, and inside of two minutes the three of us was stowed away inside, with the bag on top, and Dyke holdin' Bismarck in his lap. "Now my featherbed," says Aunt Elvira, and she has the porter jam it in alongside of me, which makes more or less of a full house. Then the procession starts, our taxi in the lead, the brougham second, and the married sisters trailin' behind in a hansom. "My sakes! but these things do ride easy!" says Aunty, settlin' back in her corner. "Can they go any faster, Dyckman?" "Just wait until we get straightened out on the avenue," says Dyke, and tips me the roguish glance. "I've ridden behind some fast horses in my time," says the old lady; "so you can't scare me. But now, Dyckman, I'd like to know exactly what you've been doing, and what you intend to do." Well, Dyke starts in to unload the whole yarn, beginnin' by ownin' up that he'd scratched the Bishop proposition long ago. And he was statin' some of his troubles at college, when I gets a backward glimpse out of the side window at something that makes me sit up. First off I thought it was another snow storm with flakes bigger'n I'd ever seen before, and then I tumbles to the situation. It ain't snow; it's feathers. In jammin' that mattress into the taxi the tick must have had a hole ripped in it, and the part that was bulgin' through the opposite window was leakin' hen foliage to beat the cars. "Hey!" says I, buttin' in on the confession and pointin' back. "We're losin' part of our cargo." "Land sakes!" says Aunt Elvira, after one glance. "Stop! Stop!" At that Dyke pounds on the front glass for the driver to shut off the juice. But Jerry must have had Dyke out before, and maybe he mistook the signal. Anyway, the machine gives a groan and a jerk and we begins skimmin' along the asphalt at double speed. That don't check the moltin' process any, and Dyke was gettin' real excited, when we hears a chuckle from Aunt Elvira.