An Infernal Machine. 315 



considerable downward slope to the front, the tiresome thing 

 would not turn round, except very slowly and at a terrible 

 amount of muscular expenditure on the part of the ever- 

 faithful Joe, who had in his usual kind-hearted way came to 

 help his master. The bad performance of the machine, which 

 was really not to blame for its failure to act properly on this 

 occasion, was greeted with uproarious laughter by the audi- 

 ence. I could have heartily joined in with the merriment, 

 had I not known the agony of mind that the poor inventor 

 was feeling at that time. At last, seeing that he could do 

 nothing on the stage with the machine, which required to be 

 placed on level ground in order to work efficiently ; the horse 

 had to be backed out of its confined position, and the machine 

 ignominiously led off. To make up for this failure, Sample 

 took the nervous horse in hand, and in his customary expert 

 manner, after about ten minutes, made the animal stand still 

 while he blew a steam whistle all about it. This feat naturally 

 ' showed up ' the unfortunate machine still more. 



Leon came on attired in his usual sombrero, Norfolk 

 blouse and fishing - boots, and gave a show of what, as far 

 as I could see, he had learned from Galvayne and Norton 

 Smith, and of what they had respectively learned from 

 Sample and Gleeson. To my thinking, his work was en- 

 tirely without merit from a horseman's point of view ; yet, 

 having an immense amount of self-confidence and self-asser- 

 tion, he ' went down ' fairly well with a certain class. 



The second horse, if I remember rightly, which Sample 

 was given to handle, was a reputed man-eater. ' Ladies and 

 gentlemen,' said Sample, coming up to the footlights, ' I am 

 an old man, and this is a very vicious horse. To prove to you 

 the excellence of my system, I shall have him turned loose, 

 and merely by the use of the whip which I hold in my hand, 

 I shall, without hurting him, make him so quiet that he will 

 come up to me to be patted.' The old man whether he was 

 acting with consummate cleverness, or whether, from having 

 been a long time away from horses, he was really a little 



