ritchit in time to
attend to my business there."

"Ye can't drive a hoss too fast when ye first set out," answered the
boy. "Ye'll hurt a hoss if ye do that. After a little while she'll warm
up, and then she'll go better. Oh, she can go if she's a mind ter. She's
a rattler when she really gets goin'."

"I don't want her to rattle," said I; "but what is her ordinary rate of
travel,--how many miles an hour, do you suppose?"

"Don't know as I ever counted," the boy said. "Some miles she goes
faster, and some miles she goes slower. A good deal depends on whether
it's uphill or downhill."

"Well," said I, taking out my watch, "we must keep her up to six miles
an hour, at least, and then we shall do the eight miles by half past
nine, with something to spare."

"Eight miles!" repeated the boy. "Eight miles to where?"

"Sanpritchit," replied I. "That's what they told me."

"Oh, that's by water," said the driver; "but this road's got to go
around the end of the bay, and after that 'way round the top of the big
marsh, and that makes it a good seventeen miles to Sanpritchit. Half
past nine! Why, the boss told me, if I didn't get there before twelve, I
must stop somewhere and water the mare and give her some oats. I've got
a bag of them back there."

I sat dumb. Of course, with this conveyance, and seventeen miles between
me and Sanpritchit, it was absurd to suppose that I could get there
before the yacht sailed. It was ridiculous to go an inch farther on such
a tedious and useless journey.

"Boy," I asked, "where is the nearest railroad station?"

"Stipbitts," said he.

"How far?"

"Five miles."

"Take me there," I said.

The boy looked at me in surprise. "I can't do that. I was told to take
you to Sanpritchit: that's where I'm goin', and I'm goin' to bring back
a box belongin' to Captain Fluke. That's what I 'in goin' to do."

"I cannot get there in time," I said. "I didn't know it was so far. Take
me to Stipbitts, and I will give you a dollar; then you can go along and
attend to Captain Fluke's box. I have already paid for the drive to
Sanpritchit."

"Have you got as much as a dollar and a half about you?" asked the boy.

I replied that I had.

"All right," said he; "give me that, and I'll take you to Stipbitts."

The bargain was struck, I was taken to Stipbitts, and an hour afterward
I was on my way to my home at Arden.

There was one very satisfactory feature about this course of action: it
was plain