28 STABLE SECRETS. 



and rubbed and nestled his velvety nose among the nicely- 

 starched front of Puffy Doddles' Sunday shirt, greatly to the 

 disarrangement of the careful design of the laundress. 



" Roll me over, indeed ! " exclaimed Robert Top's best lad, 

 acknowledging Sunshine's caresses by gently chafing his velvety 

 nose with one hand, and smoothing down the bright, glossy, 

 chesnut-coloured neck of " the best two-year-old out " with the 

 other, as it was bent in a graceful arch to meet the tenderness 

 given and returned. " Roll me over, indeed ! " repeated Puffy 

 Doddles. " Why, you'd sooner kick yourself out of your skin, 

 and that ye know as well as I do." 



Sunshine, perhaps, knew even better than the speaker what 

 his sentiments were upon this particular subject ; but he did 

 nothing more than to continue rumpling the folds of the front 

 of Puffy Doddles' Sunday shirt through the agency of gentle 

 friction. 



" They say, and this tells me," resumed Robert Top's best 

 lad, touching the volume he had been perusing with so much 

 interest, and which was. now thrust into a side-pocket of his 

 Holland jacket — "they say, and this tells me," repeated he, 

 " that you're the best two-year-old out. Your blood, shape, 

 growth, and performances — which are out-an'-out, as nobody 

 can deny — tell me that you're what Mr. Top would call a flyer. 

 You've done all your friends ever asked ; and done it well, too, 

 with a little over, which is a good deal more than can be said 

 of any Christian that / ever made acquaintance with yet. 

 Such being the case, all you've got to do," continued Puffy 

 Doddles, addressing the object of his regard in a tone and 

 manner which pourtrayed a thorough conviction that he was 

 perfectly understood, " is to go on just as you've began. No 

 improvement is wanted when the work's done as well as it can 

 be done. That having been your little game up to this point, 

 all I ask, now I'm looking after ye, is to go in and win while 

 you've got legs to stand on, or a heart to make 'm move." 



Sunshine increased the gentle friction against the starched 



