oceed without the little boy,
and lingered behind to ascertain his age, and concluded by asking the
child if he had any aunts that looked like mama.

As the door closed Mr. Slick said, "It's a pity she don't go well in
gear. The difficulty with those critters is to git them to start: arter
that there is no trouble with them, if you don't check 'em too short. If
you do they'll stop again, run back and kick like mad, and then Old Nick
himself wouldn't start 'em. Pugwash, I guess, don't understand the
natur' of the crittur; she'll never go kind in harness for him. _When I
see a child_," said the Clockmaker, "_I always feel safe with these
women-folk; for I have always found that the road to a woman's heart
lies through her child_."

"You seem," said I, "to understand the female heart so well, I make no
doubt you are a general favorite among the fair sex." "Any man," he
replied, "that understands horses has a pretty considerable fair
knowledge of women, for they are jist alike in temper, and require the
very identical same treatment. _Encourage the timid ones, be gentle and
steady with the fractious, but lather the sulky ones like blazes._

"People talk an everlastin' sight of nonsense about wine, women and
horses. I've bought and sold 'em all, I've traded in all of them, and I
tell you there ain't one in a thousand that knows a grain about either
on 'em. You hear folks say, Oh, such a man is an ugly-grained critter,
he'll break his wife's heart; jist as if a woman's heart was as brittle
as a pipe-stalk. The female heart, as far as my experience goes, is jist
like a new india-rubber shoe: you may pull and pull at it till it
stretches out a yard long, and then let go, and it will fly right back
to its old shape. Their hearts are made of stout leather, I tell you;
there's a plaguy sight of wear in 'em.

"I never knowed but one case of a broken heart, and that was in t'other
sex, one Washington Banks. He was a sneezer. He was tall enough to spit
down on the heads of your grenadiers, and near about high enough to wade
across Charlestown River, and as strong as a tow-boat. I guess he was
somewhat less than a foot longer than the moral law and catechism, too.
He was a perfect pictur' of a man; you couldn't fault him in no
particular, he was so just a made critter; folks used to run to the
winder when he passed, and say, 'There goes Washington Banks; beant he
lovely!' I do believe there wasn't a gal in the Lowell factories that