--There he is, now!"
"_Where_?"
"Amongst those trees down there--Look!"
In a small grove, skirting the road some distance behind them, Mr.
BUMSTEAD could indeed be seen, dodging wildly from one tree to another
in an extraordinary manner, and occasionally leaping high in the air and
slashing excitedly around him with his alpaca umbrella. A hoop from a
barrel, possibly cast out upon the road by somebody, had, apparently,
become entangled around the legs and in the coat-tails of the
Ritualistic organist; and he, in his extreme nervous sensibility,
precipitately mistaking it for one of his old enemies, the snakes, had
evidently fled headlong with it as far as the grove, and was there
engaging it in frantic single-combat.
"Oh, take me home, at once, please!" begged FLORA, alarmed at the
remarkable sight.
"Poor dear old fellow!" exclaimed her companion, obediently hurrying
onward with her, "I shall never have the heart to tell him of our
separation, and must leave it to your guardian. He'll think he's been
the cause of it, by stealing your heart from me.--Here he comes!"
They had barely time to conceal themselves in the Macassar porch, when,
with umbrella in full play, and the barrel-hoop half-way up to his
waist, Mr. BUMSTEAD came bounding along the turnpike with frenzied
agility. "Shoo! 'S'cat, you viper! Get out!" cried he; and stopped, with
an unearthly culminating scream of terror, immediately in front of the
Alms-House, where the hoop suddenly fell at his feet.
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