ip. Then, thanking his stars that he was
wiser than some people, Number 177 would lob on to the track and settle
down to his spin like the gentleman he was. Elsewhere, the eye fell upon
a cloud of nameless ones, purchases from Abdul Rahman, whose worth will
be proved next hot weather, when they are seriously taken in
hand--skirmishing over the face of the land and enjoying themselves
immensely. High above everything else, like a collier among barges,
screaming shrilly, a black, flamboyant Marwari stallion, with a crest
like the crest of a barb, barrel-bellied, goose-rumped, and river-maned,
pranced through the press, while the slow-pacing waler carriage-horses
eyed him with deep disfavour, and the Maharaja Kanwar's tiny mount
capered under his pink, Roman nose, kicking up as much dust as the
_Foxhall_ colt who had got on to a lovely patch of sand and was dancing
a saraband in it. In and out of the tangle, going down to or coming back
from the courses, ran, shuffled, rocketed, plunged, sulked, or stampeded
countless horses of all kinds, shapes, and descriptions--so that the eye
at last failed to see what they were, and only retained a general
impression of a whirl of bays, greys, iron greys, and chestnuts with
white stockings, some as good as could be desired, others average, but
not one distinctly bad.

"We have no downright bad 'uns in this stable. What's the use?" said the
Master of Horse, calmly. "They are all good beasts and, one with
another, must cost more than a thousand rupees each. This year's new
ones bought from Bombay and the pick of our own studs are a hundred
strong about. May be more. Yes, they look all right enough; but you can
never know what they are going to turn out. Live-stock is very
uncertain." "And how are the stables managed? how do you make room for
the fresh stock?" Something this way. Here are all the new ones and
Parrott's lot, and the English colts that Maharaja Pertab Singh brought
out with him from Home. _Winterlake_ out o' _Queen's Consort_ that
chestnut is with the two white stockings you're looking at now. Well,
next hot weather we shall see what they're made of and which is who.
There's so many that the trainer hardly knows 'em one from another till
they begin to be a good deal forward. Those that haven't got the pace,
or that the Maharaja don't fancy, they're taken out and sold for what
they'll bring. The man who takes the horses out has a good job of it. He
comes back and says: "I s