ennessy, putting back the shaggy hair
on her shoulder. A wide and shiny patch of black skin showed where the
hatter's plate glass had flayed the shoulder. "She played the divil
goin' through the streets, and made flitthers of herself this way, in a
shop window. Gunning give the word to shoot her. The dealer's boy told
Patsey Crimmeen. 'Twas Patsey was caring her at the show for Miss
Fitzroy. Shtan' will ye!"--this to the mare, whose eyes glinted white as
she flung away her head from the light of the candle.

"Whatever fright she got she didn't forget it," said the smith.

[Illustration: "MR. GUNNING WAS LOOKIN' OUT FOR A COB."]

"I was up in Dublin meself the same time," pursued Mr. Fennessy. "Afther
I seem' Patsey I took a sthroll down to Brennan's yard. The leg was in
two halves, barrin' the shkin, and the showldher swoll up as big as a
sack o' meal. I was three or four days goin' down to look at her this
way, and I seen she wasn't as bad as what they thought. I come in one
morning, and the boy says to me, 'The boss has three horses comin' in
to-day, an' I dunno where'll we put this one.' I goes to Brennan, and he
sitting down to his breakfast, and the wife with him. 'Sir,' says I,
'for the honour of God sell me that mare!' We had hard strugglin' then.
In the latther end the wife says, 'It's as good for ye to part her,
James,' says she, 'and Mr. Gunning'll never know what way she went. This
honest man'll never say where he got her.' 'I will not, ma'am,' says I.
'I have a brother in the postin' line in Belfast, and it's for him I'm
buyin' her.'"

The, process of making nail-holes in the shoe seemed to engross the
taciturn young smith's attention for the next minute or two.

"There was a man over from Craffroe in town yesterday," he observed
presently, "that said Mr. Gunning was lookin' out for a cob, and he'd
fancy one that would lep."

He eyed his work sedulously as he spoke.

Something, it might have been the light of the candle, woke a flicker in
Mr. Fennessy's eye. He passed his hand gently down the mare's quarter.

"Supposing now that the mane was off her, and something about six inches
of a dock took off her tail, what sort of a cob d'ye think she'd make,
Larry?"

The smith, with a sudden falsetto cackle of laughter, plunged the shoe
into a tub of water, in which it gurgled and spluttered as if in
appreciation of the jest.

PART III

Dotted at intervals throughout society are the people endow