When I suggested the buggy ride to Peaches she was delighted, and I moseyed for the Ruraldene livery stable to get staked to a horse.

Anybody who has ever lived in a suburban town will doubtless recall what handsome specimens of equine perfection may be found in the local livery stable—­not.

The livery man at Ruraldene is named Henlopen Diffenbingle, and he looks the part,

I judged from the excited manner in which he grabbed my deposit money that morning that he had a note falling due next day.

Then Henlopen shut his eyes, counted six, turned around twice, multiplied the day of the week by 19, subtracted 17, and the answer was a cream-colored horse with four pink feet and a frightened face, which looked at me sadly, sighed deeply and then backed up into the shafts of a buggy with red wheels and white sulphur springs.

[Illustration:  The answer was a cream-colored horse which looked at me sadly.]

The livery man said that the name of the horse was Parsifal, because it seemed to go better in German.

I drove Parsifal up to our modest home, and all the way there we ran neck and neck with a coal cart.

Parsifal used to be a fast horse, but quite some time ago he stopped eating his wild oats and now leads a slower life.

When I reached the gate I whistled for Peaches, because I was afraid to get out and leave Parsifal alone.  He might go to sleep and fall down.

My wife came out, looked at the rig, and then went back in the house and bade everybody an affecting farewell.

There were tears in her eyes when she came out and climbed into the buggy.  She said she was crying because Aunt Martha wasn’t there to see us driving away and have the laugh of her life.

We started off and we were rushing along the road, passing a fence and overtaking a telegraph pole every once in a while, when suddenly we heard behind us a very insistent choof-choof-choof-choof!

“It’s one of those Careless Wagons,” I whispered to Peaches, and then we both looked at Parsifal to see if there was a mental struggle going on in his forehead, but he was rushing onward with his head down, watching his feet to make sure they didn’t step on each other.

Choof-choof-choof! came the Torpedo Destroyer behind us, and I wrapped the reins around my wrist, in case Parsifal should get uneasy and want to print horseshoes all over that automobile.

The next minute the machine passed us, going at the rate of 14 constables an hour, and as it did so Parsifal stopped still and seemed to be biting his lips with suppressed emotion.

I coaxed him to proceed in English, in Spanish and Italian, and then in a pale blue language of my own, but he just stood there and bit his lips.

I believe if he had possessed fingernails he would have bitten them too.

I gave the reins to my wife with instructions how to act if the horse started, and I jumped out to argue with him.