k it at an angle,
clearing a wholly unnecessary thirty feet. Again the hurricane of cheers
broke out. "Don't he fly 'em," said one man, waving his hat. At the
last fence he made his spring yards too soon; his forelegs got over all
right, but his hind legs dropped on the rail with a sounding rap, and he
left a little tuft of hair sticking on it.

"I like to see 'em feel their fences," said the fat man. "I had a
bay 'orse once, and he felt every fence he ever jumped; shows their
confidence."

"I think he'll feel that last one for a while," said the little dark
man. "What's this now?"

"Number Two, Homeward Bound!" An old, solid chestnut horse came out and
cantered up to each jump, clearing them coolly and methodically. The
crowd was not struck by the performance, and the fat man said: "No
pace!" but surreptitiously made two strokes (to indicate Number Two) on
the cuff of his shirt.

"Number Eleven, Spite!" This was a leggy, weedy chestnut,
half-racehorse, half-nondescript, ridden by a terrified amateur, who
went at the fence with a white, set face. The horse raced up to the
fence, and stopped dead, amid the jeers of the crowd. The rider let
daylight into him with his spurs, and rushed him at it again. This time
he got over.

Round he went, clouting some fences with his front legs, others with
his hind legs. The crowd jeered, but the fat man, from a sheer spirit
of opposition, said: "That would be a good horse if he was rode better."
And the squatter remarked: "Yes, he belongs to a young feller just near
me. I've seen him jump splendidly out in the bush, over brush fences."

The little dark man said nothing, but made a note in his book.

"Number Twelve, Gaslight!" "Now, you'll see a horse," said the fat man.
"I've judged this 'orse in twenty different shows, and gave him first
prize every time!"

Gaslight turned out to be a fiddle-headed, heavy-shouldered brute, whose
long experience of jumping in shows where they give points for pace--as
if the affair was a steeplechase--had taught him to get the business
over as quickly as he could. He went thundering round the ring, pulling
double, and standing off his fences in a style that would infallibly
bring him to grief if following hounds across roads or through broken
timber.

"Now," said the fat man, "that's a 'unter, that is. What I say is, when
you come to judge at a show, pick out the 'orse you'd soonest be on if
Ned Kelly was after you, and there you have the b