the fierceness of his rage." To enjoy, therefore,
a fine racer — not as one does a work of
art— we like the point of sight to be the point
of distance. The safest point, in case of accident
(say, for instance, a sudden striking-out of
the hinder hoofs), we hold to be the vanishing
point — a point by no means attainable on
the inside of that contracted kind of stable
known as a " loose box."

The trainer evidently mistakes our fears
for modesty. We boldly step forward to
the outer edge of the threshold, but
uncomfortably close to the hind-quarters of
Pollybus, a "favourite" for the Derby. When
we perceive that he has neither bit nor curb;
nor bridle, nor halter; that he is being "rubbed
down " by a small boy, after having taken his
gallops; that there is nothing on earth—
except the small boy— to prevent his kicking,
or plunging, or biting, or butting his visitors
to death; we breathe rather thickly. When
the trainer exclaims, " Shut the door, Sam!"
and the little groom does his master's bidding,
and boxes us up, we desire to be breathing
the fresh air of the Downs again.

"Bless you, sir!" says our good-tempered
informant, when he sees us shrink away
from Pollybus, changing sides at a signal
from his cleaner; " these horses " (we look
round, and for the first time perceive, with
a tremor, the heels of another high-mettled
racer protruding from an adjoining stall)
"these horses are as quiet as you are;
and—I say it without offence—just as well
behaved. It is quite laughable to hear the
notions of people who are not used to them.
They are the gentlest and most tractable
creeturs in creation. Then, as to shape and
symmetry, is there anything like them?"

We acknowledge that Pretty Perth — the
mare in the adjoining box—could hardly be
surpassed for beauty.

"Ah, can you wonder at noblemen and
gentlemen laying out their twenty and thirty
thousand a year on them?"

"So much?"

"Why, my gov'nor's stud costs us five-and-
twenty thousand a year, one year with
another. There's an eye, sir!"

The large, prominent, but mild optics of
Pretty Perth are at this moment turned full
upon us. Nothing, certainly, can be gentler
than the expression that beams from them.
She is " taking," as Mr. Filbert is pleased to
say, " measure of us." She does not stare
vulgarly, or peer upon us a half-bred indifference;
but, having duly and deliberately satisfied
her mind respecting our external appearance,
allows her attention to be leisurely diverted
to some oats with which the boy had just
supplied the manger.

"It is all a mistake," continues Mr. Filbert,
commenting on certain vulgar errors respecting
race-horses; " thorough-breds are not
nearly so rampagious as mongrels and
half-breds. The two horses in this stall are
gentlefolks, with as good blood in their veins as
the best nobleman in the land. They would be
just as back'ard in doing anything unworthy
of a lady or gentleman, as any lord or lady in
St. James's—such as kicking, or rearing, or
shying, or biting. The pedigree of every
horse that starts in any great race, is to be
traced as regularly up to James the First's
Arabian, or to Cromwell's White Turk, or to
the Darley or Godolphin barbs, as your great
English families are to the Conqueror. The
worst thing they will do, is running away now
and then with their jockeys. And what's that?
Why, only the animal's animal-spirit running
away with him. They are not," adds Mr.
Filbert, with a merry twinkle in his eye, " the
only young bloods that are fond of going too
last."

To our question whether he considers
that a race-horse could go too fast, Mr.
Filbert gives a jolly negative, and remarks that
it is all owing to high feeding and fine air;
"for, mind you, horses get much better air to
breathe than men do, and more of it."

All this while the two boys are sibillating
lustily while rubbing and polishing the coats
of their horses; which are as soft as velvet, and
much smoother. When the little grooms come
to the fetlock and pastern, the chamois-leather
they have been using is discarded as too coarse
and rough, and they rub away down to the hoofs
with their sleek and plump hands. Every wish
they express, either in words or by signs, is
cheerfully obeyed by the horse. The terms the
quadruped seems to be on with the small biped,
are those of the most easy and intimate friendship.
They thoroughly understand one another.
We feel a little ashamed of our mistrust of so
much docility, and leave the stable with much
less awe of a race-horse than we entered it.

"And now, Mr. Filbert, one delicate question
— What security is there against these
horses being drugged, so that they may lose
a race?"

Mr. Filbert halts, places his legs apart, and
his arms akimbo, and throws into his reply
a severe significance, mildly tinged with
indignation. He commences with saying, " I'll tell
you where it is:—there is a deal more said
about foul play and horses going amiss, than
there need be."

"Then the boys are never heavily bribed?"

"Heavily bribed, Sir! " Mr. Filbert
contracts his eyes, but sharpens up their expression,
to look the suspicion down. "Bribed!
—it may not be hard to bribe a man, but it's
not so easy to bribe a boy. What's the use of
a hundred-pound note to a child of ten or
twelve year old? Try him with a pen'north
of apples, or a slice of pudding, and you have
a better chance; though I would not give
you the price of a sugar-stick for it. Nine out
of ten of these lads would not have a hair of
their horse's tail ruffled if they could help it;
much more any such harm as drugs or
downright poison. The boy and the horse are so
fond of one another, that a racing stable is a
regular happy family of boys and horses.