"I believe you're humbuggin' me," said Miss Phaeton.

"I am offering a veiled apology," said I.

"Stuff!" said she. "You know you told Dolly Foster that I should
make an excellent wife for a trainer."

Oh, these women! A man had better talk to a phonograph.

"Or anybody else," said I politely.

Miss Phaeton whipped up her horses.

"Look out! There's the mounted policeman," I cried.

"No, he isn't. Are you afraid?" she retorted.

"I'm not fit to die," I pleaded.

"I don't care a pin for your opinion, you know," she continued (I
had never supposed that she did); "but what did you mean by it?"

"I never said it."

"Oh!"

"All right--I never did."

"Then Dolly invented it?"