Mr. Somers was handling it single-handed, and though he was coming at a reckless speed, I expected that he would swing back of the house and come to one of the dramatic sudden stops, on the verge of an accident, for which he is famous.  So he did, but not on the driveway!

The Thing gave a lurch and veered toward the barn, spitting like a cageful of tiger cats.  Somers was pushing the lever and gripping the brake with all his athletic might, but to no purpose.  The children, who, wild with excitement, had by this time sought the safety of the open barn door, seemed a second time to be in the monster’s path.

Another lurch!  Surely man and machine would be dashed to bits against the substantial stable wall!

Then the Thing changed its course, and showing a ray of flustered intelligence, made a mighty leap off the bank wall and landed hub deep in the soft, friable soil of the new strawberry bed, where, after one convulsive effort, some part of its anatomy blew up with the triple report of a rapid-fire gun, and after having relieved itself of a cloud of steam, it settled down peacefully, as if a strawberry bed was the place of all others it preferred for a noonday nap.

Harvey Somers was shot with a left-handed twirl directly into one of the hotbed frames, from which the sash was pushed back, and landed in a doubled-up position, amid a tearing sound and the crash of broken glass.  Meanwhile, the boys, frightened at the cloud of steam, yelled “Fire!” at the top of their lungs.

As I flew to help him, I could for the instant think of nothing but the Lizard Bill’s assisted progress up the chimney and into the cucumber frame, but as a rather faint voice said, “Not you; kindly call the Doctor,” my mirth changed to alarm, which was not lessened when Timothy Saunders, hearing the uproar and the cry of fire, arriving too late to grasp the situation with his slow Scotch brain, and seeing me leaning over the plant frame, picked up the squirt and deluged the unfortunate man with whale-oil spray!

Coughing and choking, Mr. Somers finally sat up, but did not offer to do more, wiped his eyes, and said to me in most delightful and courteous tones, “Would you be so good as to allow your man to bring me either a bath robe or a mackintosh?”

I was at once relieved, for I knew that the lacerations were of trousers and not flesh, and at the same time I saw that the crash of glass was caused merely by the toppling backward of the sash, also that all my young heliotrope plants that were in the frame where the chauffeur reposed were hopelessly ruined.

Timothy brought out Evan’s bath gown, and in a few moments Mr. Somers was himself again, and after surveying the scene of the disaster, he approached me with a charming bow, and drawing a crumpled note from his pocket said:—­