seeing her comfortably hoff, back I went with
Tom.

There was more hexcitement than hever.
You'll 'ardly believe it—but, in that short time,
the bull had killed three more hosses, and
hinjured a man—and was raging about the enclosure,
shaking the blood in showers from his
horns and head. Many of the ladies was half
standing, waving their fans, and hurraying like
the men. For myself, wexed as I was at the
trick Tom had played us, I hown I was not
free from the prewailing hexcitement—so,
speaking coldly, I says:

"Wotever may be my priwate opinion of
your cattle show—Mr. Tirritup—I consider
that, bein' here, it is my dooty to see it hout—if
honly in the hope that something may occur
to halter my present impression."

"All right, old fellow," says Tom. "See!"

Just at that moment, a trumpet sounded,
and several of the men with the ribbined spikes
ran into the enclosure, and began dancing
about the bull, teasing and hirritating him,
leaving their spikes fixed in his neck; but
halways saving their own skins in a wonderful
way.

"They know, you see," says Tom, "by the
prick of his ear, which side he's goin' to charge,
and sticks him on the t'other."

At last, one man brought a chair, and sat
hisself down in it as coolly as if he was goin' to
have a quiet chat with the bull. He had in
each hand a spike, to which was fastened a sort
of cracker. Down goes the bull's tremenjious
head, and he rushes at the sitting man. Hup
goes the chair, twenty feet in the hair; but
the man stands by, laughing, and on each side
of the poor beast's head are stuck the spikes,
spattering fire! There was more tricks and
teasing, such as 'anging their 'ats on the bull's
horns, hexcetera, but the hanimal got tired o'
fighting nothing, and there was a pause, when
the trumpet sounded again, heverybody bolted,
and henter the mattydoor, glistening like a
'arlequin. There was a roar of applause.

"'Hel Tato' is deservedly pop'lar," remarked
Tom, "'aving polished off his four hundred
bulls with only one mistake."

"Hel Tato" walks straight towards the bull,
which glares at him a moment with his red
eyes, then, using all his remaining strength,
makes a furious, stumbling charge. There's the
whish of a scarlet mantle—the glitter of a
sword—a cloud of dust, and the beast is on his
knees and broad forehead, at the feet of "Hel
Tato," dead. 'Twas the only manly stroke he
had received, and was rewarded with a 'urricane
of applause, 'andfuls of money, and cigars
enough to fill a barrow to the brim. Three
mules then come dashing in at full gallop, was
hitched to the bull, and whirled him off, as if
he had been made o' pasteboard! Hafter that,
the place was put to rights, the ladies ate
oranges, and hother bulls was perjuiced. But
I had had enough of Rammyres Vermijo, and
Tom laughed, and said, so had he.

We walks away silent, when presently Tom—
whose cigarette didn't seem to draw kindly—
looks sideways at me, and says:

"You're disappinted, Lufkin!"

"Disappinted!" I bust out. "Say, hindignant.
Hadd, ashamed! I've given countenance
to a hexhibition as hatrocious as it is
cowardly. I've dishonoured the name and
character of the British farmer. 'Owever I shall
'old up my 'ead again, at the Salutation, I don't
know. I shall blush to look my hown bulls in
the face when I think of the hend o' this one!
You bring him up, from his free pastures—the
brave, hunsuspectin' beast, and the use you
make of his might and strength—his noble
lines—his splendid dewelopment of limb and
muscle—his glorious crest his more than manly
courage is to turn him into a railed prison,
theer to be prodded with pikes, scorched with
fireworks, bullied, baited, and bewildered, until,
blind and weak with loss of blood, he can be
safely cut down by that mixture o' the monkey
and the murderer you call a 'mattydoor!' Aye,
Tom, if the beast could speak, that would
be his wersion o' the sport. Hout upon such
sport! It hasn't even the merit of being
dangerous. Between your harmour, hosses, cloaks,
squibs, noise, and numbers, its fifty to one agin
the single hanimal, before hever he henters
the ring.

"And, if it's cruel to the bulls, it's worse for
the hosses. They can't defend theirselves, and
their riders, padded as they are, think honly of
their own carcases.*

"And if it's cruel to the hosses—oh Tom,
Tom, it's worst cruelty of all to the women!
Yes, them that flutters and fidgets most, in
that 'orrible joy, bears deadliest witness against
man's misleading. Hour duty is, and ever was,
to restrain that spirit, heager, curious, hexcitable,
that seems the 'eritage of the weak but
dear companion God has given us. Is it in this
Christian age and land, that we are found doing
our hutmost to encourage it? No, Tom, my
boy, instead of fostering in her the savage
thirst of blood, show her those inevitable sufferings
with which her gentle heart can sympathise,
and which her tender hand can soothe. As for
your hosses, instead of tearing out their
hinsides, fill 'em with 'olesome food. And as for
your beef, when it can't fulfil no nobler hend,
why, cook it like a man, and hask me to dinner!"

*Mr. Lufkin's comment—correct in the main—has
found an honourable exception in the person of
Calderon, at present the first picador in Spain. This man
occasionally rides an old white horse, perfectly blind,
which he has succeeded in bringing in safety, almost
without a scratch, from thirty desperate encounters.
By the laws of the bull-ring, a horse that escapes in
safety, from three conflicts, becomes the property of
the rider.