d thing it didn't run down some Irish family, and get you in for
damages," said a guest.

It appeared, then, that there were two good things about this disaster.
My friend had not thought there were so many, but while he rejoiced in
this fact, he rebelled at the notion that a sorrow like that rendered
the sufferer in any event liable for damages, and he resolved that he
never would have paid them. But probably he would.

Some half-grown boys got the phaeton right-side up, and restored its
shafts and cushions, and it limped away with them towards the
carriage-house. Presently another half-grown boy came riding Billy up
the hill. Billy showed an inflated nostril and an excited eye, but
physically he was unharmed, save for a slight scratch on what was
described as the off hind-leg; the reader may choose which leg this was.

"The worst of it is," said the guest, "that you never can trust 'em
after they've run off once."

"Have some tea?" said the host to my friend.

"No, thank you," said my friend, in whose heart the worst of it rankled;
and he walked home embittered by his guilty consciousness that Billy
ought never to have been left untied. But it was not this self-reproach;
it was not the mutilated phaeton; it was not the loss of Billy, who must
now be sold; it was the wreck of settled hopes, the renewed suspense of
faith, the repetition of the tragical farce of buying another horse,
that most grieved my friend.

Billy's former owners made a feint of supplying other horses in his
place, but the only horse supplied was an aged veteran with the
scratches, who must have come seven early in our era, and who, from his
habit of getting about on tiptoe, must have been tender for'a'd beyond
anything of my friend's previous experience. Probably if he could have
waited they might have replaced Billy in time, but their next
installment from the West produced nothing suited to his wants but a
horse with the presence and carriage of a pig, and he preferred to let
them sell Billy for what he would bring, and to trust his fate
elsewhere. Billy had fallen nearly one half in value, and he brought
very little--to his owner; though the new purchaser was afterwards
reported to value him at much more than what my friend had paid for him.
These things are really mysteries; you cannot fathom them; it is idle to
try. My friend remained grieving over his own folly and carelessness,
with a fond hankering for the poor little horse he had los