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210 all the while, extricated my lashed-up steed. The fat baker was cruelly seated on poor 'Snowden's' head throughout the unravelling process. Now that I am sure was unnecessary. I had had enough of the dusty streets and smirched faces of Gumford for that day. I drove slowly homewards, a sadder but a wiser man.

"Across the bridge, you remember, is a rare patch of grass. 'My poor old sat-upon beast, in more senses than one,' I exclaimed, 'you shall browse the luscious herb awhile.' I was afraid to take the brute out of his terrible trappings, lest I might be unable to incarcerate him again. You know I never can remember the number of holes in the 'belly-band' and 'turns' of the breeching round the shaft; not to mention sundry needful adjustments of traces and reins. So I thought he should feed as he was, while I enjoyed the more fragrant weed and cogitated upon 'what may happen to an Englishman in Australia.'

"How could he, I thought, see to eat and avoid the wretched thistles with those horrid, hot winkers on? In tender regard for my long-suffering nag I managed, by dint of standing on tip-toe (he would stick his ears in the clouds, of course), to drag off, somehow, the headgear.

"I hardly know what happened next," continued Tom, wiping the perspiration from his face. "As one possessed, hurling me into a bed of thistles, the creature dashed off. Trap and horse went bounding and crashing over logs, through bushes, till, smash! they were caught in a thicket. I limped after them. At sight of me the creature started again. By furious kickings, of which I could not have thought my placid steed capable, he had extricated himself from my precious 'Abbott.' I caught the beast at length, and here I am," concluded the