Under the influence of some freakish impulse, Pomp suddenly jumped to his feet and, whirling his arms aloft, uttered a wild whoop.  Startled by the unexpected apparition, the horses gave a sudden start, and nearly succeeded in overturning the wagon.

“Massy on us!” exclaimed an old lady on the back seat, suddenly flinging her arms round young Morton’s neck, in the height of her consternation.

“All right, marm,” said Ajax reassuringly, after a brief but successful conflict with the horses.  “We sha’n’t go over this time.  I should like to give that little black imp a good shaking.”

“Oh, I’ve lost my ban’box, with my best bunnit,” hastily exclaimed the old lady.  “Le’ me get out and find it.  It was a present from my darter, Cynthy Ann, and I wouldn’t lose it for a kingdom.”

In truth, when prompted by her apprehension to cling to the young man in front for protection, Mrs. Payson had inadvertently dropped the bandbox out of the window, where it met with an unhappy disaster.  The horse, quite unconscious of the damage he was doing, had backed the wagon in such a manner that one of the wheels passed directly over it.

When Ajax picked up the mutilated casket, which, with the jewel it contained, had suffered such irreparable injury, and restored it to its owner, great was the lamentation.  Rachel weeping for her children could hardly have exhibited more poignant sorrow.

“Oh, it’s sp’ilt!” groaned the old lady.  “I can never wear it arter this.  And it cost four dollars and sixty-two cents and a half without the ribbon.  Oh, deary me!”

Then, suddenly waxing indignant with the author of the mischief, she put her head out of the window, and, espying Pomp on the other side of the stone wall, looking half-repentant and half-struck with the fun of the thing, she shook her fist at him, exclaiming, “Oh, you little sarpint, ef I only had you here, I’d w’ip you till you couldn’t stan’.”

Pomp was so far from being terrified by this menace that he burst into a loud guffaw.  This, of course, added fuel to the flame of the old lady’s wrath, and filled her with thoughts of immediate vengeance.  Her sympathy with the oppressed black race was at that moment very small.

“Jest lend me your w’ip, driver,” said she, “an’ I’ll l’arn that sassy imp to make fun of his elders.”

Ajax, whose sense of humor was tickled by the old lady’s peculiarities, quietly took her at her word, and coming round to the side opened the door of the carriage.

“There, ma’am,” said he, extending the whip.  “Don’t spare him.  He deserves a flogging.”

Mrs. Payson, her eyes flashing from beneath her glasses with a vengeful light, seized the proffered whip with alacrity, and jumped out of the wagon with a lightness which could hardly have been anticipated of one of her age.

“Now, look out,” she said, brandishing the whip in a menacing way.  “I’ll git pay for that bunnit in one way, ef I don’t in another.”