may be found in the
local livery stable--not.

The livery man at Ruraldene is named Henlopen Diffenbingle, and he
looks the part,

I judged from the excited manner in which he grabbed my deposit
money that morning that he had a note falling due next day.

Then Henlopen shut his eyes, counted six, turned around twice,
multiplied the day of the week by 19, subtracted 17, and the answer
was a cream-colored horse with four pink feet and a frightened
face, which looked at me sadly, sighed deeply and then backed up
into the shafts of a buggy with red wheels and white sulphur
springs.

[Illustration: The answer was a cream-colored horse which looked
at me sadly.]

The livery man said that the name of the horse was Parsifal,
because it seemed to go better in German.

I drove Parsifal up to our modest home, and all the way there we
ran neck and neck with a coal cart.

Parsifal used to be a fast horse, but quite some time ago he
stopped eating his wild oats and now leads a slower life.

When I reached the gate I whistled for Peaches, because I was
afraid to get out and leave Parsifal alone. He might go to sleep
and fall down.

My wife came out, looked at the rig, and then went back in the
house and bade everybody an affecting farewell.

There were tears in her eyes when she came out and climbed into the
buggy. She said she was crying because Aunt Martha wasn't there to
see us driving away and have the laugh of her life.

We started off and we were rushing along the road, passing a
fence and overtaking a telegraph pole every once in a while, when
suddenly we heard behind us a very insistent choof-choof-choof-choof!

"It's one of those Careless Wagons," I whispered to Peaches, and
then we both looked at Parsifal to see if there was a mental
struggle going on in his forehead, but he was rushing onward with
his head down, watching his feet to make sure they didn't step on
each other.

Choof-choof-choof! came the Torpedo Destroyer behind us, and I
wrapped the reins around my wrist, in case Parsifal should get
uneasy and want to print horseshoes all over that automobile.

The next minute the machine passed us, going at the rate of 14
constables an hour, and as it did so Parsifal stopped still and
seemed to be biting his lips with suppressed emotion.

I coaxed him to proceed in English, in Spanish and Italian, and
then in a pale blue language of my own, but he just stood there and
bit his lips.

I believe if h