72 mti 33oI). 



he does not begrudge me a few extra oats at his own 

 cost when he has been doing pretty well, and my 

 share of the day's work has been exceptional!}^ 

 hard. 



But my object in penning these lines, kindly 

 reader, is not to abuse, or even expose, the short- 

 comings of my present surroundings ; for I am not 

 on the whole a discontented old horse, as I am, too, 

 aware that I am not an unusually unlucky one ; but 

 to try, if possible, to prevent other wealthy horse 

 owners, like Mr. Thankless, from so soon forgetting 

 the obligations they profess themselves to be under 

 to old favourites, such as I once was, and the good 

 services that those have rendered them. To make 

 them, too, consider what the future lot of such an 

 one may be, ere they cast him for a few sovereigns 

 in his old age on what to too many proves a rough 

 world indeed. 



My own lot is, perhaps, a happier one than that 

 of the majority of well-bred horses that share my 

 fate, for though I might not be passed sound by the 

 whole of the Veterinary College, or indeed by any 

 individual member of it, I am yet practically so, and 

 hence my decade has not been a rapid one. But, oh ! 

 the poor breedy slaves that I see on my travels — ex- 

 favourites many of them, no doubt — but now collar 

 galled, ill-fed and overloaded, and although doubtless 



