“And that horse—well, we sat on the bank and watched that head go leisurely across, lengthening out when it struck a washout and contracting on the ridges, with that same ironical grin part—the ugliest mouth I ever saw on a horse. At last he struck the bridge, clambered up, shook himself like a wet dog, looked back to see if I was taking it all in, and struck out to the Major’s on his own hook. “But the worst was yet to come. Just as I landed I heard a buggy turn a sharp bend in the road, drive up to where the Southerner and his horse were pulling me out and—great Caesar!—there sat in the buggy old Major Blank and the angel of my dreams. The girl shrieked and ducked her head under the lap robe, while I jumped back in that slough to hide the southern half of me, and tried to commit suicide by drowning, but my youthful head was so corky I couldn’t keep it under water long enough. The old Major drove off and started to his home by another route, the kind gentleman fished me out again, more dead than alive and I went home, with my new friend just in time to have a hard chill. I was sick two weeks, during which time I got it pretty straight that my clerking friend had been courting my blue-eyed beauty for six months himself, and I will always believe that he loaned me that horse just to get me out of the way. Anyway, three days afterwards he went down to the Major’s to get the old horse, stayed all night and fixed the wedding day, while I was swimming imaginary sloughs with my pulse at 105½. “I got back home as quickly as I could, and now, when I go to buy a horse, I never ask, ‘How fast can he go?’ but ‘How far can he swim?’” And my bachelor friend struck up a whistle which sounded like “After the Ball” and walked off. * * * * *