"It would only cost me five dollars," said Billy.

"Ten," Bertie corrected. He recalled to Billy the matter about the
landlady's hair.

"By Jove, that's so!" cried Billy, brightening. It seemed conclusive.
But he grew cloudy again the next moment. He was of opinion that one
could go too far in a thing.

"Where's your sand?" said Bertie.

Billy made an unseemly rejoinder, but even in the making was visited by
inspiration. He saw the whole thing as it really was. "By Jove!" said
he, "we couldn't get back in time for dinner."

"There's my bonny boy!" said Bertie, with pride; and he touched up the
black gelding. Uneasiness had left both of them. Cambridge was
manifestly impossible; an error in judgment; food compelled them to seek
the Bird-in-Hand. "We'll try Quincy, anyhow," Bertie said. Billy
suggested that they inquire of people on the road. This provided a new
sporting event: they could bet upon the answers. Now, the roads, not
populous at noon, had grown solitary in the sweetness of the long
twilight. Voices of birds there were; and little, black, quick brooks,
full to the margin grass, shot under the roadway through low bridges.
Through the web of young foliage the sky shone saffron, and frogs piped
in the meadow swamps. No cart or carriage appeared, however, and the
bets languished. Bertie, driving with one hand, was buttoning his coat
with the other, when the black gelding leaped from the middle of the
road to the turf and took to backing. The buggy reeled; but the driver