A WALKING DELEGATE
remnant of his salt, dropped his nose in his master's hand, and sang a little grace all to himself. The Deacon has the most enchanting manners of any one I know.
"An' fawnin' on them for what is your inalienable right. It's humiliatin'," said the yellow horse, sniffing to see if he could find a few spare grains.
"Go daown hill, then, Boney," the Deacon replied. "Guess you'll find somefin' to eat still, if yer hain't hogged it all. You've ett more'n any three of us to-day—an' day 'fore that—an' the last two months—sence you've been here."
"I am not addressin' myself to the young an' immature. I am speakin' to those whose opinion an' experience commands respect."
I saw Rod raise his head as though he were about to make a remark; then he dropped it again, and stood three-cornered, like a plough-horse. Rod can cover his mile in a shade under three minutes on an ordinary road to an ordinary buggy. He is tremendously powerful behind, but, like most Hambletonians, he grows a trifle sullen as he gets older. No one can love Rod very much; but no one can help respecting him.
"I wish to wake those," the yellow horse went on, "to an abidin' sense o' their wrongs an’ their injuries an' their outrages."
"Haow's that?" said Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, dreamily. He thought Boney was talking of some kind of feed.
"An' when I say outrages and injuries"—Boney waved his tail furiously—"I mean 'em, too. Great Oats! That's just what I do mean, plain an' straight."
[55]
