"Don't jump!" I yelled to my lady friend, but the wind whisked the first half of my sentence away. 

 Clara Jane gathered her skirts in a bunch and did a flying leap out of the crazy cab. 

 She landed right in the middle of that heap of fresh ashes—and she made good. 

 All I could see was a great, gray cloud as I 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? 

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