“What was the matter with the quarter?  Wasn’t it good?”

“Oh yes.  But you see the judge must have lost his wind or something; and I reckon when he tumbled it was something like a faint, you know.”

“Served him right for engaging in such a brutal contest.”

“Well, I dunno.  Depends on how you look at such things.  And when that was over, Longfellow entered with Mattie Evelyn.  He kept shooting past her all the time, and this worried her so that she ran a little to one side, and somehow, I dunno how it happened, but his leg tripped her, and she rolled over on the ground, hurt pretty bad, I think, while Longfellow had his leg cut pretty near to the bone.”

“Did any of the shots strike her?”

“I don’t understand you.”

“You said he kept shooting past her, and I thought maybe some of the bullets might have struck her.”

“Why, I meant that he ran past her, of course.  How in the thunder could he shoot bullets at her?”

“I thought maybe he had a gun.  But I don’t understand any of it.  It is the most astounding thing I ever heard of, at any rate.”

“Now, my dear sir, I want to ask you how Longfellow could manage a gun?”

“Why, as any other man does, of course.”

“Man! man!  Why, merciful Moses! you didn’t think I was talking about human beings all this time, did you?  Why, Longfellow is a horse!  They were racing—­running races over at the course this afternoon; and I was trying to tell you about it.”

“You don’t say?” remarked the doctor, with a sigh of relief.  “Well, I declare, I thought you were speaking of the poet, and I hardly knew whether to believe you or not; it seemed so strange that he should behave in that manner.”

Then Mr. Butterwick went into the smoking-car to tell the joke to his friends, and the doctor sat reflecting upon the outrageous impudence of the men who name their horses after respectable people.

While he was thinking about it, another sensational occurrence attracted his attention.

A man sitting in the same car with the doctor had placed a bottle of tomato catsup neck downward in the rack above his seat.  Presently a friend came in, and in a few moments the friend, who was cutting his finger-nails with a knife, introduced the subject of the races.  The discussion gradually became warm, and as the excitement increased the man with the knife gesticulated violently with the hand containing the weapon while he explained his views.  Meantime, the cork jolted out of the bottle overhead, and the catsup dripped down over the owner’s head and coat and collar without his perceiving the fact.

[Illustration:  AN EXCITED OLD LADY]

Soon a nervous old lady on the back seat caught sight of the red stain, and imagining it was blood, instantly began to scream “Murder!” at the top of her voice.  As the passengers, conductor and brakemen rushed up she brandished her umbrella wildly and exclaimed,