The day was wet, the ploughing was over, and as we had an idle spell, what more natural than that most of us should find business at the store? where we sat on bags and boxes, and smoked and talked, or sometimes sang beautifully to the wailing tunes from Long Jim's concertina. This day old Abe Pike, humped up on the counter, with his heels drumming against the side of it, was holding forth on the iniquity of Parliament, when a stranger entered, wringing wet, and Abe stopped to investigate his appearance. "Don't let me interrupt you," said the stranger--a townsman evidently, from his dress and assurance. "Take a seat," said Abe, pointing with his boot at a box of soap. "Not walking, are yer?" with a curious glance at the stranger's knickerbockers. "Going far? Stopping here long? Stranger, aren't you?" "Well, yes," said the newcomer with a laugh. "I've come thirty miles since breakfast." "Grub early?" "I beg your pardon? Oh, no; had breakfast at eight, left at nine." "Phew!" said Abe, "thirty miles in four hours. Must be a good horse you've got." "It is rather," said the stranger, with a curious smile. "Hoss knocked up, I s'pose. Been riding too hard?" "No, not at all. He's good for another thirty miles before sunset," and he gave us a wink. Abe looked gravely at the stranger for some seconds, while one by one, on some excuse or other, we went outside to look at the stranger's horse. We found a new pattern bicycle in the shed--new to us--and we returned to the room looking as much unconcerned as we could, but eager to get a rise out of Abe. "That's a fine animal," said Long Jim; "clean in the limbs, with plenty of grit, and full of fire. Never turned a hair, too, what's more!" Abe looked at Long Jim, who was trying to suppress a smile; then he relit the pipe he had suffered to go out. "Reminds me," he said, "of that there hoss Topgallant, which carried me one hundred miles twixt sun-up and sun-down." Fixing his eyes on--the stranger, he launched into a long yarn about some impossible incident. He was not, however, up to his usual form, being suspicious of our nods and winks, and the stranger was not astonished. "It's a curious thing," he said, "that people are slow to believe in things which have not come under their own observation unless they read of them in print. Now this very morning I met with an experience which may seem to you incredible." "Go ahead," said Long Jim. "If you've got a story, tell it, and we'd be thankful to you, after the stuff we've been obliged to swallow from Mr Pike there." "If I may say so," said the stranger, "his story was fair, but it lacked circumstance. There is an art in building up a story which perhaps my friend on the counter has missed." "Fire away," said Abe, grimly. "I'm not too old to larn."