50 TALJSS OF PINK AND SILK. 



life of them imagine. Master William was as unlike his 

 parents as is the young duckling the barn-door hen who 

 hatched him and brought him up. From his earliest days he 

 showed such precocious superiority that not one of the neigh- 

 bours' children could vie with him. Couldn't he give them 

 all a year or two and half a stone and lick the best of them ? 

 And didn't he win all their marbles and tops and other toys 

 from them ? And wasn't he the fastest runner, the best 

 athlete, and always the rmgleader of any mischief on hand ? 



Now it was a most curious fact that the lines of Jabez 

 Morgan should be laid in such a place as Market Blyton, for, 

 according to Jabez, it was one of the chief recruiting centres 

 of the Evil One. Were there not at least half a dozen training 

 establishments in and around the little town, to start with ? 

 Moreover, there was a racecourse, and spring and autumn 

 meetings, which filled the little town with racing folk, were 

 held annually. There was one satisfactory point of view from 

 which Jabez could look at it, and that was that with so much 

 iniquity going on around there was all the more work for 

 him to do in the ranks of the evildoers, v/hile at the same 

 time the lamp of his own righteousness shone all the more 

 brightly out of the surrounding darkness. 



There was busy work doing on the uplands behind the 

 town, and during the day the streets were seldom unoccupied 

 by strings of sheeted thoroughbreds and the diminutive atoms 

 of humanity attending on them, wending their way to and 

 from the wide stretches of springy turf which had proved 

 such a gold mine to Market Blyton. These horses and their 

 attendant sprites were the joy of Master William's heart and 

 the bane of his parents' existence. The pinnacle of Master 

 William's ambition would be reached when one day he should 

 find himself seated high on one of those beautiful animals ; 

 but if such a thought ever crossed the minds of his parents 

 in those early days, it would have been tantamount in their 



