"We all have had our Dobbins."

For some miles the road out of Erie was soft, dusty, narrow, and
poor--by no means fit for the proposed Erie-Buffalo race. About
fifteen miles out there is a sharp turn to the left and down a
steep incline with a ravine and stream below on the right,--a
dangerous turn at twenty miles an hour, to say nothing of forty or
fifty.

There is nothing to indicate that the road drops so suddenly after
making the turn, and we were bowling along at top speed; a wagon
coming around the corner threw us well to the outside, so that the
margin of safety was reduced to a minimum, even if the turn were
an easy one.

As we swung around the corner well over to the edge of the ravine,
we saw the grade we had to make. Nothing but a succession of small
rain gullies in the road saved us from going down the bank. By so
steering as to drop the skidding wheels on the outside into each
gully, the sliding of the machine received a series of violent
checks and we missed the brink of the ravine by a few inches.

A layman in the Professor's place would have jumped; but he, good
man, looked upon his escape as one of the incidents of automobile
travel.

"When I accepted your invitation, my dear fellow, I expected
something beyond the ordinary. I have not been disappointed."

It was a wonder the driving-wheels were not dished by the violent