them like a streak of lightning. "Get on!" cried Mr. Lavender, excited; "follow her she's trying to catch us up!" Joe urged on the car, which responded gallantly, swaying from side to side, while the gas-bag bellied and shook; but the faster it went the faster the sheep-dog flew in front of it. "This is dreadful!" said Mr. Lavender in anguish, leaning far out. "Blink! Blink!" His cries were drowned in the roar of the car. "Damn the brute!" muttered Joe, "at this rate she'll be over the edge in 'alf a mo'. Wherever does she think we are?" "Blink! Blink!" wailed Mr. Lavender. "Get on, Joe, get on! She's gaining on us!" "Well I never see anything like this," said Joe, "chasin' wot's chasing you! Hi! Hi!" Urged on by their shouts and the noise of the pursuing car, the poor dog redoubled her efforts to rejoin her master, and Mr. Lavender, Joe, and the car, which had begun to emit the most lamentable creaks and odours, redoubled theirs. "I shall bust her up," said Joe. "I care not!" cried Mr. Lavender. "I must recover the dog." They flashed through the outskirts of the Garden City. "Stop her, stop her!" called Mr. Lavender to such of the astonished inhabitants as they had already left behind. "This is a nightmare, Joe!" "'It's a blinkin' day-dream," returned Joe, forcing the car to an expiring spurt. "If she gets to that 'ill before we ketch 'er, we're done; the old geyser can't 'alf crawl up 'ills." "We're gaining," shrieked Mr. Lavender; "I can see her tongue." As though it heard his voice, the car leaped forward and stopped with a sudden and most formidable jerk; the door burst open, and Mr. Lavender fell out upon his sheep-dog. Fortunately they were in the only bed of nettles in that part of the world, and its softness and that of Blink assuaged the severity of his fall, yet it was some minutes before he regained the full measure of his faculties. He came to himself sitting on a milestone, with his dog on her hind legs between his knees, licking his face clean, and panting down
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