Page:Black Beauty (1877).djvu/237



never forget my new master, he had black eyes and a hooked nose, his mouth was as full of teeth as a hull dog's, and his voice was as harsh as the grinding of cart wheels over gravel stones. His name was Nicholas Skinner, and I believe he was the same man that poor Seedy Sam drove for.

I have heard men say, that seeing is believing; but I should say that feeling is believing; for much as I had seen before, I never knew till now the utter misery of a cab-horse's life.

Skinner had a low set of cabs and a low set of drivers; he was hard on the men, and the men were hard on the horses. In this place we had no Sunday rest, and it was in the heat of summer.

Sometimes on a Sunday morning, a party of fast men would hire the cab for the day; four of them inside and another with the driver, and I had to take them 10 or 15 miles out into the country, and back again: never would any of them get down to walk up a hill, let it be ever so steep, or the day ever so hot—unless indeed, when the driver was afraid I should not manage it, and sometimes I was so fevered and