No More Learning

They went their several
ways from the dressing-room. The Colonel dined with two Chaplains, while
Platte went to a bachelor-party, and whist to follow.

Mark how things happen! If Platte's sais had put the new saddle-pad on
the mare, the butts of the terrets would not have worked through the
worn leather, and the old pad into the mare's withers, when she was
coming home at two o'clock in the morning. She would not have reared,
bolted, fallen into a ditch, upset the cart, and sent Platte flying over
an aloe-hedge on to Mrs. Larkyn's well-kept lawn; and this tale would
never have been written. But the mare did all these things, and while
Platte was rolling over and over on the turf, like a shot rabbit, the
watch and guard flew from his waistcoat--as an Infantry Major's sword
hops out of the scabbard when they are firing a feu de joie--and rolled
and rolled in the moonlight, till it stopped under a window.

Platte stuffed his handkerchief under the pad, put the cart straight,
and went home.

Mark again how Kismet works! This would not happen once in a hundred
years. Towards the end of his dinner with the two Chaplains, the Colonel
let out his waistcoat and leaned over the table to look at some Mission
Reports. The bar of the watch-guard worked through the buttonhole, and
the watch--Platte's watch--slid quietly on to the carpet. Where the
bearer found it next morning and kept it.

Then the Colonel went home to the wife of his bosom; but the driver of
the carriage was drunk and lost his way. So the Colonel returned at an
unseemly hour and his excuses were not accepted.
If the Colonel's Wife
had been an ordinary "vessel of wrath appointed for destruction," she
would have known that when a man stays away on purpose, his excuse
is always sound and original. The very baldness of the Colonel's
explanation proved its truth.

See once more the workings of Kismet! The Colonel's watch which came
with Platte hurriedly on to Mrs. Larkyn's lawn, chose to stop just under
Mrs. Larkyn's window, where she saw it early in the morning, recognized
it, and picked it up. She had heard the crash of Platte's cart at two
o'clock that morning, and his voice calling the mare names. She knew
Platte and liked him. That day she showed him the watch and heard his
story. He put his head on one side, winked and said:--"How disgusting!
Shocking old man! with his religious training, too! I should send the
watch to the Colonel's Wife and ask for explanations. "

Mrs. Larkyn thought for a minute of the Laplaces--whom she had known
when Laplace and his wife believed in each other--and answered:--"I will
send it. I think it will do her good.