26 STABLE SECRETS. 



stated hours in Sunshine's box than the movements of the best 

 of parish clocks either would or could have regulated. To the 

 moment itself Puffy was there or thereabouts; and as a 

 summary to what he did and did not, it may be briefly stated 

 that, far exceeding the reasonable expectations of the chief 

 of the Great Stable of the North, his several duties were 

 performed with unprecedented exactness. 



Robert Top's best lad, within the small margin of three 

 weeks since his introduction to the mysteries of that popular 

 institution, found himself in favour with his superiors and 

 respected by his equals, to say nothing of his inferiors in the 

 social scale, who might possibly have had something to say 

 upon the subject the reverse of complimentary. 



Upon the bottom of a stable-pail, up in the morning early, 

 Puffy Doddles sat, as he had often sat in days gone by. 

 Before him stood Sunshine, clothed in his box, with one ear 

 pricked and the other thrown back, as if prepared to receive 

 prompt intelligence, through the direct medium of acoustics, 

 from directly opposite points of the compass. His square-cut 

 tail, almost as fine as unspun silk, hung motionless and nearly 

 level with his hocks, and his near hind foot, white as snow 

 from the coronet to a little above the pastern, rested upon the 

 extreme point of the toe. At his most perfect ease, and 

 indolent as became the leisure moments of "the best two- 

 year-old out," Sunshine stood in his box, with his punctual 

 attendant as sole witness of his listlessness. 



Puffy Doddles, through the agency of a damped thumb, 

 was engaged in turning over the leaves of a volume for which 

 his knees acted as a temporary reading-desk. Earnestly, and 

 with a scrutinising look turned upon the contents of each 

 succeeding page, Robert Top's best lad seemed to be master of 

 the contents with a concentrated force of which his respective 

 and collective senses were capable of monopolising. 



" Here it is again ! " soliloquised he. " Here it is again ! 

 1 Sanshine, by Glitter, dam Comet, by Falling Star.' Upon my" 



