pushed on to the next stand. About half a mile further down the road the machine concluded to turn into a farm-yard and give the home folks a treat. It went through a window in the barn, out through a skylight, did the hula dance over the lawn, and then fell in the well and stayed there, panting as though its little gas-engine heart would break. When I limped back to Clara Jane the storm signals were flying. She was away out on the ice. The feather boa looked like the hawser on a canal boat, and the ashes had changed the pattern of her dress goods. We were stingy talkers on the road home. It will take me two years to square myself. Hereafter, me to the trolley! Me to the saucy stage coach when I'm due to gallop away and away! No more benzine buggies for yours sincerely! Never again for the bughouse barouche! Not me. 

I have only one consolation: The chap we pried off the bicycle was Clarence Edgerton Montrose. It will take him about three years and two months to find all the spots that foolish-wagon knocked off him. Meantime, I hope to be Clara Jane's sugar buyer again.

JOHN HENRY AT THE MUSICALE.

Did you ever get ready and go to a _musicale_? Isn't it the velvet goods? They pulled off one at Jack Frothingham's last Wednesday evening and I had to walk up and down the aisle with the rest of the bunch. Mind you, I like Jack, so this is no secret conclave of the Anvil Association. Only, I wish to put him wise that when he gives his next _musicale_ my address is Forest Avenue, in the woods. When I reached Jack's house the Burnish Brothers were grabbing groutchy music out of a guitar that didn't want to give up, and the mad revel was on. The Burnish Brothers part their hair in the middle and always do "The Washington Post" march on their mandolins for an encore. If Mr. Sousa ever catches them there'll be a couple of shine chord-squeezers away to the bad. When the Burnish Brothers took a bow and backed off we were all invited to listen to a soprano solo by Miss Imogene Lukewarm. Somebody went around and locked the doors, so I made up my mind to die game. A foolish friend once told Imogene she could sing, so she went out and bought up a bunch of tra-la-la's and began to beat them around the parlor. When Imogene sings she makes faces at herself. If she needs a high note she goes after like she was calling the dachshund in to dinner. Imogene sang "Sleep, Sweetly Sleep," and then kept us awake with her voice. After Imogene crept back to her cave we had the first treat of the evening, and the shock was so sudden it jarred us. Uncle Mil came out and quivered a violin obligato entitled "The Lost Sheep in the Mountain," 

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