Page:Such Is Life.djvu/244

230 "Will yo ever go home, I dunno?" laughed the prince, picking up his hat, while the baffled cook recovered his stick, and returned to the hut.

"Now what's the use of arguing that a blackfellow belongs to the human race?" queried Moriarty—the last ripple of trouble having vanished from the serene shallowness of his mind. "That welt would have laid one of us out. And did you ever notice that a blackfellow or a half-caste can always clear himself when his horse comes down? The first thing a whitefellow thinks about, when he feels his horse gone, is to get out of the way of what's coming; but it's an even wager that he's pinned. Never so with the inferior race. Now, last Boxing Day, when we had races here, we could see that the main event rested between Admiral Rodney—a big chestnut, belonging to a cove on a visit to the boss—with Toby in the saddle; and that grey of M'Murdo's, Admiral Crichton, with"

"Repeat that last name, please?"

"Admiral Cry-ton. That slews you! Did n't I tell you you'd be cutting yourself? It's M'Murdo's own pronunciation; and if he doesn't know the proper twang, I'm dash well sure you don't; for he owns the horse. But wasn't it a curious coincidence of name—considering that neither the owners nor the horses had ever met before? Well, Young Jack was to ride Admiral Crichton; and I had such faith in the horse, with Jack up, that I plunged thundering heavy on him. So did Nelson. But, by jingo, the more we saw of Admiral Rodney, the more frightened we got—in fact, we could see there was nothing for it but to stiffen Toby. Toby was to get a note if he won the big event, and nothing if he lost; but it paid us to give him two notes to run cronk"

"One moment," I interrupted—"just oblige me with the name and address of that horse's owner?"

"Shut-up. It's blown over now. But as I was telling you, the chestnut had been a few times round the course, under the owner's eye, and he knew the road; and to make matters better, you might break the reins, but you could n't get a give out of his mouth; and he could travel like a rifle-bullet; so when Toby tried to get him inside the posts, he pulled and reefed like fury, and bolted altogether; and came flying into the straight, a dozen lengths to the good. Of course, losing the race made a difference of a note to Toby; so he caught the horse's shoulder with his spur, and turned him upside down, going at that bat. Then, to keep himself out of a row, he gammoned dead till we poured a pint of beer down his throat; and he lay groaning for two solid hours, winking now and then at Nelson and me. But that'll just tell you the difference. Neither you nor I would be game to do a thing like that; we could n't be trained to it; simply because we belong to a superior race. I say, Toby!" —for the half-caste had seated himself near Pawsome's bench, and was there enjoying his cockroach—"off you go, like a good chap, and fetch Collins's horses.

"Impidence ain't worth a d—n, if it ain't properly carried out," replied the inferior creation. "Think you git a note a week jist for eatin' your (adj.) tucker an' orderin' people about? I done my day's work.