"Do this regular?" inquired Tally dryly.

"Every year."

Bob got his breath at last.

"Why!" he cried. "What'll happen to him! He'll be killed sure!"

"Not him!" stated the stableman emphatically. "Not Dicky Darrell! He'll
smash up good, and will crawl out of the wreck, and he'll limp back here
in just about one half-hour."

"How about the horse and buggy?"

"Oh, we'll catch the horse in a day or two--it's a spoiled colt,
anyway--and we'll patch up the buggy if she's patchable. If not, we'll
leave it. Usual programme."

The stableman and Tally lit their pipes. Nobody seemed much interested
now that the amusement was over. Bob owned a boyish desire to follow the
wake of the cyclone, but in the presence of this imperturbability, he
repressed his inclination.

"Some day the damn fool will bust his head open," said the liveryman,
after a ruminative pause.

"I shouldn't think you'd rent him a horse," said Bob.

"He pays," yawned the other.