y. Jack-o'-Lantern's hoofs need your attention, and
at Severndale a bit like the Senator's would mean a bad quarter of an
hour for _some_body. So, you'd have a hard time 'holding down your job'
there. That's pure American slang. Do you understand it?" and shrugging
her shoulders slightly, Peggy cried: "Come on, girls! We're wasting
loads of time. Attention, Shashai! Right dress! Right step! Front!
Steady!"

As Peggy spoke, Shashai and Silver Star sprang side by side, then stood
like statues. At "right dress" they turned their heads toward the group
of horses. At "right step," they closed up until they stood in perfect
line beside them. At "front," "steady" they stood facing the two girls,
waiting the next command.

"Come up to the platform. Come up and be ready to mount, young ladies,"
ordered Dawson.

"We'll mount when you give the word," answered Polly, her hand, like
Peggy's, upon her horse's withers.

"You'll never be able to from the ground, Miss."

A ringing laugh from the girls, sudden springs and they were in their
saddles. "Four bells!" they cried and swept away around the ring, their
gay laughter flung behind them to where their companion's horses were
fidgeting and chafing under Dawson's highly conventional restraint,
while that disconcerted man whose veneer had so promptly been
penetrated by Peggy's keen vision, forgot himself so far as to mutter
under his breath:

"These Hamerican girls are the limit, and I'm in for a ---- of a time if
I don't mind my hey. And she Miss Stewart of Severndale, and I not hon
to that before! 'Ere's a go and no mistake."

CHAPTER IX

COMMON SENSE AND HORSE SENSE

As has no doubt already been suspected, Alfred Dawson, Riding Master at
the Columbia Heights School, was such a complete impostor that he
actually imposed upon himself. He is by no means the only one on record.
Oddly enough we are all more or less impostors, blind to our own pet
foibles, deluded as to our own little weaknesses. Dawson's methods with
his charges, both two-footed and four, were the methods of thousands of
others, whether they have the directing of young people, or the training
of animal's entrusted to them. Like grains of corn--pour them into a
hopper and they come out at the other end meal--of some sort--good--bad
or indifferent as it happens--that was not _his_ concern; his job was to
pour in the grains and he knew of but one way to pour--just as someone
else had poured before him. T