THE SPOTTED HORSE'S STORY.* 



A GEBISTMAS COMEDY. 



** Seen life, indeed?" said the Spotted Horse. 

 '' I should rather think so ! You surely did not 

 imagine that I had passed my entire existence in 

 surveying humanity from a toy-shop window ? 

 I might make quite a pastoral poem about my 

 youth : the pleasant, richly daisied summer 

 fields in which I used to canter ; the sweet, 

 juicy grass, and bright purple clover ; the 

 warm straw-yard where I wintered — for I was 

 well treated then, as became one with such 

 blood in his veins as ran in mine. Ah, those 

 were the days ! before the racket and bustle of 

 life began, when I had no care or anxiety, and, 

 as I remember hearing some one sing, ' Fillies 

 was my only joy ! ' — not, grammatical, perhaps, 



* " The Spotted Horse's Story " was one of a collection of 

 tales written by Messrs. F. C. Burnand, G. A. Sala, tbe late 

 Henry Kingsley, Joseph Hatton, Sir Charles Young, etc., to 

 make up a Christmas number ; the idea being that a number 

 of toys fortuitously brought together related their histories. 



