Forthwith I tried to tell that liveryman just what I thought about him and Parsifal, but the telephone girl short-circuited my remarks and they came back and set fire to the woodwork.

“My, my!” I could hear the liveryman saying.  “Parsifal’s hesitation must be the result of the epidemic of automobiles which is now raging over our country roads.  The automobile has a strange effect on Parsifal.  It seems to cover him with a pause and gives him inflammation of the speed.”

I thought of poor Peaches sitting out there in that blushing buggy staring at a dreaming horse, while in front of her a Red Devil Wagon complained internally and shook its tonneau at her, and once more I jolted that liveryman with a few verbal twisters.

“Don’t get excited,” he whispered back over the phone.  “Parsifal is a new idea in horses.  Whenever he meets an automobile he goes to sleep and tries to forget it.  Isn’t that better than running away and dragging you to a hospital?  There must be something about an automobile that affects Parsifal’s heart.  I think it is the gasolene.  The odor from the gasolene seems to penetrate his mind to the region of his memory and he forgets to move.  Parsifal is a fine horse, with a most lovable disposition, but when the air becomes charged with gasolene he forgets his duty and falls asleep at the switch.”

I went out and explained to my wife that Parsifal was a victim of the gasolene habit, and that he would never leave that spot until the Bubble went away, and that the Bubble couldn’t go away until the chauffeur could wake up, and that the chauffeur couldn’t wake up until his mind had digested a lot of wood alcohol, so she jumped out of the buggy and we walked home.

Parsifal may be a new idea in horses, but the next time I go buggy riding it will be in a street car.

When we reached home that afternoon I found a note from Bunch which cheered me up wonderfully.

The note read as follows: 

  CITY, Sunday Morning.

DEAR JOHN—­Sorry we had the run in but it was all my fault.  Am sending you two rosebuds this evening as a peace offering.

  Yours,
    BUNCH.

“Two rosebuds!” I snickered.  “That boy Bunch is a honey-cooler all right.  But I’m sorry he didn’t make it two cigars.”

“Oh!  John!” Peaches said to me a little while later, when we went over to Uncle Peter’s villa to take dinner with them and spend the evening.  “I do wish I could tell you about the surprise, but Uncle Peter made me promise not to say a single word.”

“Well, if you feel tempted to give the old gentleman the double cross and tell me, why I’ll lock myself up in the doghouse till he gives you the starting pistol,” I chimed in.  “Who is that dragging the works out of the clock in the sitting room?”

“It isn’t any such thing!” Peaches exclaimed indignantly.  “It’s Uncle Peter, and he has a dreadful cold, but Aunt Martha has it nearly cured now, she says.”