When Uncle Gilbert recovered consciousness the machine was breathing again, so he jumped to the helm, pointed the bow at Tampico, Mex., and began to cut the grass. Alas! however, it seemed that the demon of unrest possessed that Coal-oil Coupe, for it soon began to jump and skip, and suddenly, with a snort, it took the river road and scooted away from town. Uncle Gilbert patted it on the back and spoke soothingly, but it was no use. Aunt Miranda pleaded with him to keep in near the shore, because she was getting seasick; but her tears were in vain. "You must appear calm and indifferent in the presence of danger," muttered Uncle Gilbert as they rushed madly into the bosom of a flock of cows. [Illustration] But luck was with them, for with a turn of the wrist Uncle Gilbert jumped the machine across the road, and all he could feel was the sharp swish of an old cow's tail across his cheek as they rushed on and out of that animal's life forever. Aunt Miranda tried to be brave and to chat pleasantly. "How is Wall Street these days?" she asked, and just then the machine struck a stone and she went up in the air. "Unsettled," answered Uncle Gilbert when she got back, and then there was an embarrassing silence. To try to hold a polite conversation, on a motor car in full flight is very much like trying to repeat the Declaration of Independence while falling from a seventh-story window. Then, all of a sudden, the machine struck a chord in G, and started for Newfoundland at the rate of 7,000,000 miles a minute. Aunt Miranda threw her arms around Uncle Gilbert's neck, he threw his neck around the lever, the lever threw him over, and they both threw a fit. Down the road ahead of them a man and his wife were quarreling. They were so much in earnest that they did not hear the machine sneaking swiftly up on rubber shoes. As the Benzine Buggy was about to fall upon the quarreling man and wife Uncle Gilbert squeezed a couple of hoarse "Toot toots" from the horn, whereupon the woman in the road threw up both hands and leaped for the man. The man threw up both feet and leaped for the fence. The last Aunt Miranda saw of them they were entering their modest home neck and neck, and the divorce court lost a bet. Then the machine began to climb a telegraph pole, and as it ran down the other side Aunt Miranda wanted to know for the tenth time if it would explode. "How did John tell you to handle it?" she shrieked, as the Rowdy Cart bit its way through a stone fence and began to dance a two-step over a strange man's lawn. "The only way to handle this infernal machine is to soak it in water," yelled Uncle Gilbert as they hit the main road again. "I don't see what family pride has to do with it; there isn't a soul looking," moaned Aunt Miranda. "Oh if I could only be arrested for fast riding and get this thing stopped," wailed Uncle Gilbert as they headed for the river.