_Don Quixote._ And is it propelled by petroleum? _Mr. Punch._ By nothing so crude, flaring, and fuliginous, dear Don. It is "motived" by--LIGHT! _Don Quixote._ Wondrous machine! How would I like to mount it! Is it in likeness of a horse? _Mr. Punch._ Say not the witlings and wiseacres that we are on the verge of a Horseless Age? _Don Quixote._ They do. But, by the bones of my beloved Rosinante, the idea liketh me not. The horse is indeed a noble animal---- _Mr. Punch._ And will continue to be "useful to man," our current cyclo-and-auto-motormania notwithstanding. The cycle doubtless hath its utility, and even charm, though in certain of its characteristics it seems qualified to give mankind the hump! _Don Quixote._ And womankind the wobbles! _Mr. Punch._ When lovely woman stoops to wheeling, And finds too late that bikes betray, Beauty, and grace, and finer feeling She'll see the sex hath chucked away! _Don Quixote._ Verily, had my peerless DULCINEA herself bestraddled a spinning-wheel in ungraceful posture and unseemly garb, I, her sworn knight, should have deemed her the victim of diabolic enchantment. Why, even the afflicted duenna, with her fair cheeks beard-begrown by enchantment, she whom SANCHO called the Countess Three-Skirts, would not--save under dire compulsion--have donned the modern divided skirt and mounted the man-saddled steed of steel. Art sure, Sir Sage, that after all it is _not_ enchantment that hath so far unsexed your afflicted damosels and duennas, and that 'tis not my duty in their defence to lay lance in rest---- _Mr. Punch._ Nay, sweet soul of chivalry, Mayfair is not La Mancha, and you may safely leave its fair denizens to the defence--or, if need be, chastening--of that knightly lance of to-day, my own invincible and unerring _bâton_. But, verily, 'twere a punishment not ill-deserved by certain of our mannish maidens and male-mimicking matrons did MALAMBRUNO clap bristly scrubbing-brush hairs upon them as upon your distressful Duenna of Toledo. _Don Quixote._ Verily, Sir Sage, we are mounting skyward, dawn-ward, New Year-ward in a wondrous manner! Thy spotted steed is surely Pegasus itself, for Skyworld is full of myriad voices of wisdom and melody. _Mr. Punch._ But my Auto-Motor, comparable only with the Sun God's glowing chariot, shall outsoar and outshine even our present empyrean flight. _Voice_ (_suddenly sounding behind them_). Wuff! Wuff! Wuff! _Don Quixote_ (_looking round_). Saints preserve us! What is this new marvellous enchantment? Hath Sirius itself broken loose?--doth the Dog Star follow our trail? _Mr. Punch._ What seest thou, Sir Knight? _Don Quixote_ (_with awe_). I behold, as it were, an aerial fire-wheeled car, shapen in the guise of a Titanic Tome, coruscating comet-like in its career, whereon is mounted--yes, verily--a Dog--a Dog of Dogs! What, Sir PUNCH, may be this portent?