130 ROAD, TRACK, AND STABLE. 
sons, it ceased to be a hat and became a badge. There 
was another good feature of this hotel; the office, a 
long, low room, had a big open fireplace, where logs 
of wood burned cheerfully on a frosty night in au- 
tumn. The hostler, moreover, was an excellent one. 
True, he fairly reeked of chloroform (New Hampshire 
is a prohibition State), and his memory was not of the 
best, being unable to carry “four quarts of oats” 
more than fifteen minutes, or to distinguish it at the 
distance of half an hour from a bran mash; but he 
was gentle with his horses, and groomed them well. 
If the roadster is to be kept in good condition, and 
to come out fresh every morning, his master must be 
liberal with fees and vigilant in his oversight. Hos- 
tlers, —I say it with reluctance, — especially in large 
stables, are, generally speaking, worthless, drunken 
creatures; and here and there a tavern-keeper is found 
base enough to cheat a horse out of his oats. “But,” 
some self-indulgent reader may exclaim, “one might 
as well stay at home as to go off on a journey and be 
bothered with a horse.” This would be distinctly the 
argument of a Yahoo, and if any one is in danger of 
being deceived by it I would refer him to what the 
famous Captain Dugald Dalgetty said upon the sub- 
ject: “‘It is my custom, my friends, to see Gustavus 
(for so I have called him, after my invincible master) 
accommodated myself; we are old friends and fellow 
travellers, and as I often need the use of his legs, I 
always lend him in my turn the service of my tongue 
to call for whatever he has occasion for;’ and accord- 
ingly he strode into the stable after his steed without 
further apology.” 
Horses often fall ill or break down ona journey, and 
