"'Most gave me the blind staggers," says I. "You ought to distribute smoked glasses along the route of procession. Did you buy it some dark night, or was it made to order after somethin' you saw in a dream?" "The idea!" says Sadie. "This jaunting car is one I had sent over from Paris, to help my ponies get a blue ribbon at the Hill'n'dale horse show. And that's what it did, too." "Blue ribbon!" says I. "The judges must have been colour blind." "Oh, I don't know," says Sadie, stickin' her tongue out at me. "After that I've a good notion to make you walk." "I don't know as I'd have nerve enough to ride in that, anyway," says I. "Is it a funeral you're goin' to?" "Next thing to it," says she. "But come on, Shorty; get aboard and I'll tell you all about it." So I steps up alongside the spotted silk, and the driver lets the ponies loose. Say, it was like ridin' sideways in a roller coaster. Sadie said she was awful glad to see me just then. She had a job on hand that she hated to do, and she needed some one to stand in her corner and cheer her up while she tackled it. Seems she'd got rash a few days before and made a promise to lug the Duke and Duchess of Kildee over to call on the Wigghorns. Sadie'd been actin' as sort of advance agent for Their Dukelets durin' their splurge over here, and Mrs. Wigghorn had mesmerised her into makin' a date for a call. This was the day. It would have gone through all right if some one hadn't put the Duke wise to what he was up against. Maybe you know about the Wigghorns? Course, they've got the goods, for about a dozen years ago old Wigghorn choked a car patent out of some poor inventor, and his bank account's been pyramidin' so fast ever since that now he's in the eight figure class; but when it comes to bein' in the monkey dinner crowd, they ain't even counted as near-silks. "Why," says Sadie, "I've heard that they have their champagne standing in rows on the sideboard, and that they serve charlotte russe for breakfast!" "That's an awful thing to repeat," says I. "Oh, well," says she, "Mrs. Wigghorn's a good natured soul, and I do think the Duke might have stood her for an afternoon. He wouldn't though, and now I've got to go there and call it off, just as she's got herself into her diamond stomacher, probably, to receive them." "You couldn't ring in a couple of subs?" says I. For a minute Sadie's blue eyes lights up like I'd passed her a plate of peach ice cream. "If I only could!" says she. Then she shakes her head. "No," she says, "I should hate to lie. And, anyway, there's no one within reach who could play their parts." "That bein' the case," says I, "it looks like you'd have to go ahead and break the sad news. What do you want me to do--hold a bucket for the tears?"