Just when I had picked out a good-sized rock, which was to be my argument, Parsifal came out of his trance and started off, but Peaches forgot her instructions and spoke above a whisper and he stopped again.

Then I took the reins, cracked the whip, shouted a couple of banzais from the Japanese national anthem, and away we rushed like the wind—­when it isn’t blowing hard.

The hours flew by and we must have gone at least half a mile, when another Kerosene Wagon came bouncing towards us from the opposite direction.

In it was a happy party of ladies and gentlemen, who were laughing and chatting about some people they had just run over.

Parsifal saw them coming and stopped still in the middle of the road.  Then he hung his head as low as he could, and I believe if that horse had been supplied with hands he would have put them over his ears.

The people in the Bubble began to shout at us, and I began to shout at the horse, and my wife began to shout at me, while Parsifal stood there and scratched his left ankle with his right heel.

Then the big machine made a sudden jump to the right and hiked by us at the rate of about a $100 fine, while the lady passengers on the hurricane deck stood up and began to hand out medals to each other because they didn’t run us down.

Ten minutes later Parsifal came to and looked over his shoulder at us with a smile as serene as the morning and once more resumed his mad career onward, ever onward.

We were now about two miles from home, and suddenly we came across a big red Bubble which stood in front of a road-house, sneezing inwardly and sobbing with all its corrugated heart.

Parsifal saw the machine before we did.

We knew there must be an automobile somewhere near, because he stopped still and quietly passed away.

I jumped out and tried to lead him by the Coroner’s Delight, but he planted his four feet in the middle of the road and refused to be coaxed.

I took that horse by the ear and whispered therein just what I thought about him, but he wouldn’t talk back.

I told him my wife’s honor was at stake, but he looked my wife over and his lips curled with an expression which seemed to say, “Impossible.”

It was all off with us.

Parsifal simply wouldn’t move until that sobbing Choo Choo Wagon had left the neighborhood, so I went inside the road-house to find the owner.

I found him.  He consisted of a German chauffeur and eight bottles of beer.

When I explained the pitiful situation to him the chauffeur swallowed two bottles of beer and began to cry.

Then he told the waiter to call him at 7:30, and he put his head down on the table and went to sleep with his face in a cute little nest of hard-boiled cigarettes.

I rushed to the telephone and called up the liveryman, but before I could think of a word strong enough to fit the occasion he whispered over the wire, “I know your voice, Mr. Henry.  I suppose Parsifal is waiting for you outside!”