On reaching the corner where they were to take the car, a discussion arose as to which direction they should go.
"It doesn't make a particle of difference, so long as we get off," affirmed Mr. Rovering.
"Well, then," rejoined the originator of the expedition, "let's take whichever car comes first." And this decision would certainly have finally disposed of the matter if at that instant Edward had not shouted, "Oh, ma, here's a car coming up!" and Edgar, "Oh, pa, here's a car coming down!" and if, moreover, these two cars had not arrived at that identical corner at one and the same moment.
They both stopped, and Mr. Rovering cried, "Dear me, Dolly, which shall we take?—which shall we take?" while Edward hopped up and down on the step of one, and Edgar practiced jumping on and off the platform of the other.
"Take the one that isn't a 'bobtail,'" returned Mrs. Rovering, composedly.
"But they're both 'bobtails!'" exclaimed her poor husband, in an agony of apprehension lest the cars should start off, and cause his sons to fall on their pocketfuls of torpedoes.
Finally Mrs. Rovering said, quietly, "We shall ride in the empty one," and this proving to be the up-bound conveyance, they got in and were off.
"Now, Robert," Mrs. Rovering began, as soon as they had recovered from the shock of starting, which had sent them all down on the seat like a row of bricks, "don't make a mistake in putting our fares in the box. Let me see, five, five—yes, both the boys are over five. Have you got it right?"
But sad to relate, Mr. Rovering had not got it right, for, owing to his wife's constant repetition of the word five, he had become so confused as to drop twenty-five cents into the box, thinking there were five in the party.
"Make the driver extricate it for us," suggested Mrs. Rovering; but that individual promptly replied that he couldn't do it, and coolly proceeded to let the money down into the safe before their very eyes. But upon this his passengers raised such an outcry of indignation that the knight of the brake was forced to open the door again, and pacify them by saying they might take the fare from the next passenger. This appeared to be such a brilliant idea that Mrs. Rovering was almost inclined to envy the driver's genius.