SULTAN. 41 



" There, I'll take thirty, and you must give me the price 

 of a bottle." 



" Come on, Fred, it's no use waiting." 



" Take him, sir. Take him at your own price. I'll give 

 you a fiver to take him away. But seriously, sir, won't you 

 give thirty for him ? " 



"No."" 



" Then stand a bottle, and you may have him for twenty- 

 five, and bad luck to ye for robbing a poor man." 



Sultan went to his new home, and his education com- 

 menced. It cannot be truly said that he took kindly to 

 harness ; in fact, he would not have it at any price. He w^as 

 tried in a long-shafted break, but that did not suit. Then he 

 was put in roller shafts, tied securely down, and a pair of cart- 

 horses were yoked in front of him ; but after Sultan had been 

 pulled along by the neck for half an hour or so, his owner 

 thought he would suspend tuition for a while. Sultan had a 

 stiff neck for a day or two but he was given no respite, and at 

 the end of a week it Avas thought that he might be induced to 

 pull the shepherd's cart. Sultan never got so far up the 

 social scale as the dog-cart; he was allowed to play havoc 

 with one or two more sohdly built conveyances, but his owner 

 thought that his own pet vehicle was too good to be trifled 

 Avith. To the saddle he took very kindly, and gave very little 

 trouble indeed, allowing the shepherd, who was not exactly a 

 Watts or a Nightingall, to bump about all over him, and 

 would even carry half a sack of cake and chop across his 

 withers. It seemed as though the blood of his ancestors 

 boiled within him at the indignity of being expected to pull 

 a shepherd's cart or a roller ; saddle horses his family had 

 been for generations, they had won big races and carried good 

 men to hounds, and that much he Avould do cheerfully, even 

 if the stepping stones to fame Avere but the daily tasks of 

 shepherding. 



