small town, and in Cherryvale it was not deemed decently
permissible, but disgraceful, to have aught to do with liquor. "The
saloon" was far from a "respectable" place even for men to visit;
and for two girls to drive up openly--brazenly--

"Get up, Ben! Get up!" rang an anguished duet.

Missy reached over and helped wallop the rains. Oh, this pain!--this
faintness! She now comprehended the feeling which had so often
overcome the fair ladies of England when enmeshed in some frightful
situation. They, on such upsetting occasions, had usually sunk back
and murmured:

"Please ring the bell--a glass of wine!" And Missy, while reading,
had been able to vision herself, in some like quandary, also
ordering a "glass of wine"; but, now! . . . the wine was only too
terribly at hand!

"Get up!--there's a good old Ben!"

"Good old Ben--get up!"

But he was not a good old Ben. He was a mean old Ben--mean with
inborn, incredibly vicious stubbornness. How terrible to live to
come to this! But Missy was about to learn what a tangled web Fate
weaves, and how amazingly she deceives sometimes when life looks
darkest. Raymond and the Stranger (Missy knew his name was Ed Brown;
alas! but you can't have everything in this world) started forth to
rescue at the same time, knocked into each other, got to Ben's head
simultaneously, and together tugged and tugged at the bridle.