and am sure that she will never sanction such a
quibble. At all events, I'll ride after the fellow." Thereupon turning
the horse round, I put him to his very best trot; I rode nearly a mile
without obtaining a glimpse of the fellow, and was becoming apprehensive
that he had escaped me by turning down some by-path, two or three of
which I had passed. Suddenly, however, on the road making a slight
turning, I perceived him right before me, moving at a tolerably swift
pace, having by this time probably overcome the resistance of the animal.
Putting my horse to a full gallop, I shouted at the top of my voice "Get
off that donkey, you rascal, and give her up to me, or I'll ride you
down." The fellow hearing the thunder of the horse's hoofs behind him,
drew up on one side of the road. "What do you want?" said he, as I
stopped my charger, now almost covered with sweat and foam, close beside
him. "Do you want to rob me?" "To rob you?" said I. "No! but to take
from you that ass, of which you have just robbed its owner." "I have
robbed no man," said the fellow; "I just now purchased it fairly of its
master, and the law will give it to me; he asked six pounds for it, and I
gave him six pounds." "Six stones, you mean, you rascal," said I; "get
down, or my horse shall be upon you in a moment;" then with a motion of
my reins, I caused the horse to rear, pressing his sides with my heels as
if I intended to make him leap. "Stop," said the man, "I'll get down,
and then try if I can't serve you out." He then got down, and confronted
me with his cudgel; he was a horrible-looking fellow, and seemed prepared
for anything. Scarcely, however, had he dismounted, when the donkey
jerked the bridle out of his hand, and probably in revenge for the usage
she had received, gave him a pair of tremendous kicks on the hip with her
hinder legs, which overturned him, and then scampered down the road the
way she had come. "Pretty treatment this," said the fellow, getting up
without his cudgel, and holding his hand to his side, "I wish I may not
be lamed for life." "And if you be," said I, "it would merely serve you
right, you rascal, for trying to cheat a poor old man out of his property
by quibbling at words." "Rascal!" said the fellow, "you lie, I am no
rascal; and as for quibbling with words--suppose I did! What then? All
the first people does it! The newspapers does it! The gentlefolks that
calls themselves the guides of the popular m