opped and apologized, he would have made up
with me, and I would not have got angry with him, but I couldn't stop.
The machine was now going as she had done when I left the barn, and we
were backing into town.

Through it all I did not lose my coolness. I said: "Araminta, look out
behind, which is ahead of us, and if you have occasion to jump now, do
it in front, which is behind," and Araminta understood me.

She sat sideways, so that she could see what was going on, but that
might have been seen from any point of view, for we were the only things
going on--or backing.

Pretty soon we passed the wreck of the buggy, and then we saw the horse
grazing on dead grass by the roadside, and at last we came on a few of
our townfolk who had seen us start, and were now come out to welcome us
home. But I did not go home just then. I should have done so if the
machine had minded me and turned in at our driveway, but it did not.

Across the way from us there is a fine lawn leading up to a beautiful
greenhouse full of rare orchids and other plants. It is the pride of my
very good neighbor, Jacob Rawlinson.

The machine, as if moved by _malice prepense_, turned just as we came to
the lawn, and began to back at railroad speed.

I told Araminta that if she was tired of riding, now was the best time
to stop; that she ought not to overdo it, and that I was going to get
out myself as soon as I had seen her off.

I saw her off.

Then after one ineffectual jab at the brake, I left the machine
hurriedly, and as I sat down on the sposhy lawn I heard a tremendous but
not unmusical sound of falling glass----

I tell Araminta that it isn't the running of an automobile that is
expensive. It is the stopping of it.

THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS

BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

I wrote some lines once on a time
In wondrous merry mood,
And thought, as usual, men would say
They were exceeding good.

They were so queer, so very queer,
I laughed as I would die;
Albeit, in the general way,
A sober man am I.

I called my servant, and he came;
How kind it was of him
To mind a slender man like me,
He of the mighty limb!

"These to the printer," I exclaimed,
And, in my humorous way,
I added, (as a trifling jest,)
"There'll be the devil to pay."

He took the paper, and I watched,
And saw him peep within;
At the first line he read, his face
Was all upon the grin.

He r