Aside from all this, he forgot that a woman might appreciate this
joke only when she heard it recounted. To live through it was
altogether a different matter. In an episode like this, a woman's
imagination, given the darkness such as usually fills a carriage at
night, becomes a round of terrors. Every moment is freighted with
death or disfigurement. Her nerves are like the taut strings of a
harp in a wintry wind, ready to snap at any moment; and then,
hysteria. With man the play, and only the play, is the thing.

Snap-crack! The surprised horses, sensitive and quick-tempered as all
highly organized beings are, nearly leaped out of the harness. Never
before had their flanks received a more unwarranted stroke of the
lash. They reared and plunged, and broke into a mad gallop, which was
exactly what the rascal on the box desired. An expert horseman, he
gauged the strength of the animals the moment they bolted, and he
knew that they were his. Once the rubber-tired vehicle slid sidewise
on the wet asphalt, and he heard a stifled scream.

He laughed, and let forth a sounding "whoop," which nowise allayed
the fright of the women inside the carriage. He wheeled into S
Street, scraping the curb as he did so. Pedestrians stopped and
stared after him. A policeman waved his club helplessly, even
hopelessly. On, on: to Warburton's mind this ride was as wild as that
which the Bishop of Vannes took from Belle-Isle to Paris in the
useless effort to save Fouquet from the wrath of Louis XIV, and to
anticipate the pregnant discoveries of one D'Artagnan. The screams
were renewed. A hand beat against the forward window and a muffled
but wrathful voice called forth a command to stop. This voice was
immediately drowned by another's prolonged scream. Our jehu began to
find all this very interesting, very exciting.