The young lady approached the machine held by her instructor as if it were a horse, then springing nimbly on it, her features became rigid with anxiety as she found that her steed would neither go on nor stand still.
Her heroic grapplings and wrestlings with it, her wild gyrations to and fro in the walk, while her teacher dashed madly after her, were so ludicrous that the sergeant, although he was well used to such spectacles, was obliged to turn away to conceal the broad grin that overspread his countenance.
The next object of his attention was a Gordon setter who was gayly trotting into the park, but who, on catching the sergeant’s eye, at once changed his happy-go-lucky demeanor for a guilty shambling gait.
“What are you doing here, Mr. Ormistead’s dog?” said the sergeant in a stern voice, as he glanced at the animal’s collar. “Where’s your escort?”
The setter immediately prostrated himself on the ground, but his humble attitude was belied by the roguish don’t-care expression of the eyes he rolled up at the guardian of the law.
The sergeant waved his hand at him. “Get home with you. You know you can’t run loose here. What would the ducks and the cats say to you; or rather, what would you say to them?”
The dog was not ready to give in. He extended the tip of a very pink tongue, and meekly licked the tip of the sergeant’s shiny boot.
“No nonsense now,” said the man firmly. “You can’t humbug me, and you understand that as well as a Christian. Run home with you.”
The dog sprang up, resumed his careless air, and trotted calmly from the park by the roadway through which he had come.
The sergeant sauntered on. It was a charming September morning. He met a few pedestrians and many nurses and children. It was yet rather early in the day for the carriage people to be out.