Warburton could occasionally hear the faint strains of music. From time to time the carriage-caller bawled out a number, and the carriage would roll up under the porte-cochere. Warburton concluded that it would be a good plan to hunt up his rig. His search did not last long. The bay and the gray stood only a little way from the gate. The box was vacant, and he climbed up and gathered the reins. He sat there for some time, longing intensely for a cigar, a good cigar, such as gentlemen smoked.
"Seventeen!" came hoarsely along on the wings of the night. "Number seventeen, and lively there!"
Warburton's pulse doubled its beat. His number!
"Skt!" The gray and the bay started forward, took the half-circle and stopped under the porte-cochere. Warburton recollected that a fashionable groom never turned his head unless spoken to; so he leveled his gaze at his horses' ears and waited. But from the very corner of his eye he caught the glimpse of two women, one of whom was enveloped in a crimson cloak. He thrilled with exultation. What a joke it was! He felt the carriage list as the women stepped in. The door slammed to, and the rare good joke was on the way.
"Off with you!" cried the pompous footman, with an imperious wave of the hand. "Number ninety-nine!"
"Ninety-nine! Ninety-nine!" bawled the carriage man.
Our jehu turned into the avenue, holding a tolerable rein. He clucked and lightly touched the horses with the lash. This was true sport; this was humor, genuine, initiative, unforced. He could imagine the girls and their fright when he finally slowed down, opened the door, and kissed them both. Wouldn't they let out a yell, though? His plan was to drive furiously for half a dozen blocks, zigzag from one side of the street to the other, taking the corners sharply, and then make for Scott Circle.
Now, a lad of six can tell the difference between seventeen and seventy-one. But this astonishing jehu of mine had been conspicuous as the worst mathematician and the best soldier in his class at West Point. No more did he remember that he was not in the wild West, and that here in the East there were laws prohibiting reckless driving.
He drove decently enough till he struck Dupont Circle. From here he turned into New Hampshire, thinking it to be Rhode Island. Mistake number two. He had studied the city map, but he was conscious of not knowing it as well as he should have known it; but, true to his nature, he trusted to luck.
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.