Should I be delayed more than two hours I could not get away at all that night, but must miss the much anticipated party altogether; and, though my companion seemed to view this possibility with perfect equanimity, my memories of the charming lady whom we were to meet at the stage door, after the performance, were too clear to permit of indifference in me.

The trolley my companion meant to catch was, however, the last one; my only hope, therefore, was to motor a distance of perhaps a dozen miles, over roads which I was frankly told were "middling to bad," and try to catch a train at The Plains station.
If I missed this train, I was lost, and must spend a solitary night in such a room as I might be able to find in a strange village.

That possibility did not appeal to me.

I began to wish that there was no such thing as fox-hunting, or that, there being such a thing, I had chosen to ignore it.
"Now," said my companion cheerfully, "we'll telegraph her." At a telegraph office he seized the pencil and wrote the following message: _Will call for you to-night after performance._ To this he signed his own name.
"What about me ?" I suggested, after glancing over his shoulder at the message.
"Oh, well," said he, "there's no use in going into all that in a telegram.

It's sufficient to let her know that one of us is coming." "But I proposed this party." "Well," he gave in, with an air of pained patience, "what shall I say, then?
Shall I add that you are unavoidably detained ?" "Not by a jugful!" I returned.