"I feared I was exceeding the speed-limit [much puffing and whizzing from Marjorie], and as I looked back through the dust [great cloud of dust represented by Gladys' pantomime] I saw I had run over a man!"
The awful groans and wails from Kitty were so realistic that Mr. Maynard himself shook with laughter.
"I sounded my horn——"
"Tooty-toot-toot!" said Rosy Posy, after being prompted by Kingdon.
"But as I was my own chauffeur"—here Kingdon's representation of a starting motor quite drowned the speaker's voice—"I hastened on before they could even get my number."
"Eight-six-eleven-nine," cried Dorothy, quite forgetting the numbers she had been told. But nobody minded it, for just then Mr. Maynard said, "And so I went home with my automobile."
At this everybody turned up at once, and the dust cloud flew about, and the man who was run over groaned fearfully, and tires burst one after another, and the horn tooted, until Mr. Maynard was really obliged to cry for mercy, and the game was at an end.
The afternoon, too, was nearly at an end, and so quickly had it flown that nobody could believe it was almost six o'clock!
But it was, and it was time for the picnic to break up, and for the little guests to go home. It had stopped raining, but was still dull and wet, so the raincoats were donned again, and, with their beautiful baskets of candies wrapped in protecting tissue papers, Gladys and Dorothy and Dick clambered into Mr. Maynard's carriage and were driven to their homes.
"Good-bye!" they called, as they drove away. "Good-bye, all! We've had a lovely time!"