Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 1).djvu/78

 the animal is walked off to be further treated and prescribed for.

Case after case is taken. One horse that draws firewood from seven in the morning until ten or eleven at night, cannot eat. Away it goes for examination, and the temperature of its pulse is taken. A lad, evidently not used to the stubborn disposition and immovable spirit of donkeys in general, has brought his own, which he informs the professor he only purchased "the week afore last." Now, nothing under the sun in the shape of argument with whip or words will make it go at anything like the pace which the man from whom he bought it guaranteed.

"Why, sir, I had to drag it here. 'Pon my word, I believe' as 'ow he knew where I was a takin' 'im, for he crawled more'n ever. I thought as 'ow there might be something wrong wi' his wind."

"Trot him along," said the professor; but the donkey turned a deaf ear to the inviting cries of forty or fifty students to "go on," and bravely stood his ground. The victor was placed on one side to be dealt with later on.

The next case was one connected with a pathetic story. The horse— a poor creature which had evidently seen better days—was owned by a laundryman, a widower, who had eleven children to support, the oldest of whom was only fifteen years of age, and the youngest six months. He depended entirely on his horse to carry the laundry round from house to house.

The poor fellow stood quietly by and seemed to read in the professor's face and gather from his hurried consultation with a brother "vet." that something out of the common was the matter with his horse. In response to the doctor's beckoning, he approached the spot where the animal stood, and, with tears in his eyes, asked in a choking voice, "Not an operation, I hope, sir?"

The professor shook his head.

Then the truth flashed upon the laundryman's mind. He stood dumbfounded for a moment. The students ceased their chatter, and, save for the movement of a horse's foot upon the uneven stones, the yard was as still as the ward of a hospital where human beings lie. The horse was condemned to death!

The poor fellow threw his arms about the animal's neck, and the horse turned its head in response to his master's caresses, and the cry which came from the man's heart could not have been more pitiful had he been parting from his only friend.