“Beg yo’ pardon, old boy—beg yo’ pardon—ha—ha—ha! Good joke. That’s the switch plug. You take it out when the machine’s idle, and I forgot to put it back in the little hole. Here,” he said, sticking it in—“and it connects the current—ha—ha—good joke—now give her a whirl.” I gave the whirl, but in no manner to enjoy the joke. I heard her fire up and begin to throb. We moved off beautifully. We began to fly up the smooth pike, my hand back in Jack’s collar, for fear he’d jump out and suicide. I dared not turn round to look the honest dog in the eyes. “Fine, fine—ain’t this fine, old man?” cried my friend enthusiastically, as we buzzed up the road. “Look at your watch—nine-twenty. Ah, now we’ll be in the field at ten sharp—sharp—two good hours for hunting before we eat our pocket lunch. “Now, your little old mare,” he laughed, “would take up those fifteen miles by now? Say! ha! ha!—acknowledge the corn, old man—the decree has gone forth—it’s all over with the old pacers.” I growled and said nothing. So did Jack. It was good, though, the way we were eating up space and getting nearer to the birds—those game, nervy, whirring birds that dart like winged flashes of thunder before your gun. We whirled over the bridge at the river at lightning speed. I saw the sign up about the fine for going over faster than a walk, but how— “How can an automobile walk—ha-ha!” he shouted, for he had read it also and divined my thoughts and winked knowingly at me. “That applies to horses and jackasses and such,” he laughed—“things that walk. But this don’t walk, eh?” _Honk! Honk!_ He was blowing for a stray mule to get out of his way. The mule got, tail up, and settled into a barbed wire fence, which he tried to jump, but only succeeded in cutting up his countenance. _Honk! Honk!_ “Get out of the way, if that’s all the sense you’ve got. My! but ain’t we buzzing?” I nodded, beginning to become exhilarated myself. “This is pretty good,” I admitted. “I begin to see how you people soon become speed crazy. We’ll get the birds to-day,” I warmed up, “and I thank you for—look out! stop!” He stopped, but not in time. It was a nervous-looking, old, fleabitten, gray mare, full of Stackpole Traveler, Dan Rice and Boston blood. I had seen it so often that I knew the very turn of its tail. In the buckboard she was pulling were three country girls, fat, solidly happy, their lines wabbling around anywhere, and the old mare going where she listeth. They were the kind of girls I knew and loved in my sappy days down in Alabama. I used to commence to kiss ’em about Christmas, knowing they’d wake up and respond about the Fourth of July. Two of them amply filled up the buckboard, but, as usual, a third one had piled on top of the others somewhere, and— “Great heaven, Horace!” I shouted. “Stop—that one there on top is holding a baby.”