“Fam’ly pets, then, has a right to do as it is their nature for to do?” squealed Todd, working nearer.

Mr. Bickford scornfully turned his back on this vulgar railer.  The carriage was at hand.

“How about pets known as medder hummin’-birds?” demanded Todd.

The Cap’n was the first in.  Hiram came next, kicking out at the amiable Hector, who would have preceded him.  When the Honorable J. Percival stepped in, some one slammed the carriage-door so quickly on his heels that his long-tailed coat was caught in the crack.

Todd forced his way close to the carriage as it was about to start.  His weak nature was in a state of anger bordering on the maniacal.

“Here’s some more family pets for you that ain’t any dangerouser than them you’re cultivatin’.  Take ’em home and study ’em.”

He climbed on the wheel and shook out of the folds of his coat a hornets’ nest that he had discovered during his temporary exile under the grand-stand.  It dropped into Mr. Bickford’s lap, and with a swat of his coat Todd crushed it where it lay.  It was a coward’s revenge, but it was an effective one.

Mr. Bickford leaped, either in pain or in order to pursue the fleeing Marengo, and fell over the side of the carriage.  His coat-tail held fast in the door, and suspended him, his toes and fingers just touching the ground.  When he jumped he threw the nest as far as he could, and it fell under the horses.  Hiram endeavored to open the hack-door as the animals started—­but who ever yet opened a hack-door in a hurry?

Cap’n Aaron Sproul’s first impulse was the impulse of the sailor who beholds dangerous top-hamper dragging at a craft’s side in a squall.  He out with his big knife and cut off the Honorable Bickford’s coat-tails with one mighty slash, and that gentleman rolled in the dust over the hornets’ nest, just outside the wheels, as the carriage roared away down the stretch.

Landlord Parrott was obliged to make one circuit of the track before he could control his steeds, but the triumphal rush down the length of the yelling grand-stand was an ovation that Cap’n Sproul did not relish.  He concealed the hateful plug hat between his knees, and scowled straight ahead.

Parrott did not go back after the Honorable Bickford.

The loyal and apologetic Kitchen assisted that gentleman to rise, brushed off his clothes—­what were left of them—­and carried him to “Bickburn Towers” in his buggy, with Hector wagging sociably in the dust behind.

Mr. Bickford fingered the ragged edge of his severed coat-tails, and kept his thoughts to himself during his ride.

When the old lady Sampson called at the Towers next day with a subscription paper to buy a carpet for the Baptist vestry, James informed her that Mr. Bickford had gone out West to look after his business interests.

When Hiram Look set Cap’n Aaron Sproul down at his door that afternoon he emphasized the embarrassed silence that had continued during the ride by driving away without a word.  Equally as saturnine, Cap’n Sproul walked through his dooryard, the battered plug hat in his hand, paying no heed to the somewhat agitated questions of his wife.  She watched his march into the corn-field with concern.