Now, one night in New York there are commemorations and libations by old
comrades, and in the morning, Mounted Policeman O'Roon, unused to potent
liquids--another premise hazardous in fiction--finds the earth bucking
and bounding like a bronco, with no stirrup into which he may insert
foot and save his honor and his badge.
_Noblesse oblige?_ Surely. So out along the driveways and bridle paths
trots Hudson Van Sweller in the uniform of his incapacitated comrade, as
like unto him as one French pea is unto a _petit pois_.
It is, of course, jolly larks for Van Sweller, who has wealth and
social position enough for him to masquerade safely even as a police
commissioner doing his duty, if he wished to do so. But society, not
given to scanning the countenances of mounted policemen, sees nothing
unusual in the officer on the beat.
And then comes the runaway.
That is a fine scene--the swaying victoria, the impetuous, daft horses
plunging through the line of scattering vehicles, the driver stupidly
holding his broken reins, and the ivory-white face of Amy Ffolliott, as
she clings desperately with each slender hand.
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