my meaning.
"It wasn't any thing of that kind. I don't owe sixpence. I was laughed
out of Ireland--that's all, though that same is bad enough."

"Laughed out of it!"

"Just so--and little you know of Ireland if that surprises you."

After acknowledging that such an event was perfectly possible, from what
I myself had seen of that country, I obtained the following very brief
account of my companion's reasons for foreign travel:

"Well, sir," began he, "it is about four months since I brought up to
Dublin from Galway a little chesnut mare, with cropped ears and a short
tail, square-jointed, and rather low--just what you'd call a smart hack
for going to cover with--a lively thing on the road with a light weight.
Nobody ever suspected that she was a clean bred thing--own sister to
Jenny, that won the Corinthians, and ran second to Giles for the
Riddlesworth--but so she was, and a better bred mare never leaped the
pound in Ballinasloe. Well, I brought her to Dublin, and used to ride
her out two or three times a week, making little matches sometimes to
trot--and, for a thorough bred, she was a clipper at trotting--to trot
a mile or so on the grass--another day to gallop the length of the nine
acres opposite the Lodge--and then sometimes, back her for a ten pound
note, to jump the biggest furze bush that could be found--all or which
she could do with ease, nobody thinking, all the while, that the
cock-tailed pony was out of Scroggins, by a 'Lamplighter mare.' As every
fellow that was beat to-day was sure to come back to-morrow, with
something better, either of his own or a friend's, I had matches booked
for every day in the week--for I always made my little boy that rode, win
by half a neck, or a nostril, and so we kept on day after day pocketing
from ten to thirty pounds or thereabouts.

"It was mighty pleasant while it lasted, for besides winning the money,
I had my own fun laughing at the spoonies that never could book my bets
fast enough. Young infantry officers and the junior bar--they were for
the most part mighty nice to look at, but very raw about racing. How
long I might have gone on in this way I cannot say; but one morning I
fell in with a fat, elderly gentleman, in shorts and gaiters, mounted on
a dun cob pony, that was very fidgety and hot tempered, and appeared to
give the rider a great deal of uneasiness.

"'He's a spicy hack you're on, sir,' said I, 'and has a go in him, I'll
be bound.'

"'I rayt