he
familiar rattle of the hard country road. I gave a sigh of relief and
stretched out my head to see whether it were as straight a bit as the
last. It was quite as straight, and in the distance bearing down on us
was a black speck that swelled at an awful speed into a motor car. Now
the horses had not yet seen a motor car. Their nerves, already shaken by
the brass band, would never stand such a horrid sight I thought, and
prudence urged an immediate getting out and a rushing to their heads.
'Stop, August!' I cried. 'Jump out, Gertrud--there's a dreadful thing
coming--they're sure to bolt----'

August slowed down in apparent obedience to my order, and without
waiting for him to stop entirely, the motor being almost upon us, I
jumped out on one side and Gertrud jumped out on the other. Before I had
time to run to the horses' heads the motor whizzed past. The horses
strange to say hardly cared at all, only mildly shying as August drove
them slowly along without stopping.

'That's all right,' I remarked, greatly relieved, to Gertrud, who still
held her stocking. 'Now we'll get in again.'

But we could not get in again because August did not stop.

'Call to him to stop,' I said to Gertrud, turning aside to pick some
unusually big poppies.

She called, but he did not stop.

'Call louder, Gertrud,' I said impatiently, for we were now a good way
behind.

She called louder, but he did not stop.

Then I called; then she called; then we called together, but he did not
stop. On the contrary, he was driving on now at the usual pace, rattling
noisily over the hard road, getting more and more out of reach.

'Shout, shout, Gertrud!' I cried in a frenzy; but how could any one so
respectable as Gertrud shout? She sent a faint shriek after the
ever-receding August, and when I tried to shout myself I was seized with
such uncontrollable laughter that nothing whatever of the nature of a
noise could be produced.

Meanwhile August was growing very small in the distance. He evidently
did not know we had got out when the motor car appeared, and was under
the pleasing impression that we were sitting behind him being jogged
comfortably towards Putbus. He dwindled and dwindled with a rapidity
distressing to witness. 'Shout, shout,' I gasped, myself contorted with
dreadful laughter, half-wildest mirth and half despair.

She began to trot down the road after him waving her stocking at his
distant back and emitting a series of shrill sh