Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/46

 they are apt to over-train their horses. Do you not think that we, too, should run the race of life on better terms were we not put so pitilessly 'through the mill? Here my companion allowed himself a mild gesture of dissent, clasping his bony lingers over his knotted knees, as if prepared to go into the subject at length. "You are one of those people," said he, "who seem to think the world is intended for a place of uninterrupted rest and enjoyment—a sort of 'Fiddler's Green,' as sailors term their paradise, where it is to be 'beer and skittles' every day and all day long. You would have no 'small end to the horn,' as my friends over the water say; and what sort of music do you think you could blow out of it? You would have food without hunger, rest without labour, energy without effort. You would be always going downhill, instead of up. And think where your