Then, Mr Bhosh, with a joyful heart, having detached his purchase from the shafts, conducted it in triumph to his domicile. It turned out to be a mare, white as snow and of marvellous amiability; and, partly because of her origin, and partly from her complexion, he christened her by the appellation of _Milky Way_. Although perforce a complete ignoramus in the art of educating a horse to win any equine contest, Mr Bhosh's nude commonsense told him that the first step was to fatten his rather too filamentous pupil with corn and similar seeds, and after a prolonged course of beanfeasts he had the gratification to behold his mare filling out as plump as a dumpling. As he desired her to remain the dark horse as long as possible, he concealed her in a small toolshed at the end of the garden, ministering to her wants with his own hands, and conducting her for daily nocturnal constitutionals several times round the central grass-patch. For some time he refrained from mounting--"fain would he climb but that he feared to fall," as Poet Bunyan once scratched with a diamond on Queen Anne's window; but at length, reflecting that if nothing ventures nothing is certain to win, he purchased a padded saddle with appendages, and surmounted _Milky Way_, who, far from regarding him as an interloper, appeared gratified by his arrival, and did her utmost to make him feel thoroughly at home. The next step was, of course, to obtain permission from the pundits who rule the roast of the Jockey Club, that _Milky Way_ might be allowed to compete in the approaching Derby. Now this was a more delicately ticklish matter than might be supposed, owing to the circumstance that the said pundits are such warm men, and so well endowed with this world's riches that they are practically non-corruptible. Fortunately, Mr Bhosh, as a dabster in English composition, was a pastmaster in drawing a petition, and, sitting down, he constructed the following:-- TO THOSE MOST WORSHIPFUL BIGHEADS IN CONTROL OF JOCKEYS CLUB. BENIGN PERSONAGES! This Petition humbly sheweth: (1.) That your Petitioner is a native Indian Cambridge B.A., a Barrister-at-law, and a most loyal and devoted subject of Her Majesty the QUEEN-EMPRESS. (2.) That it is of excessive importance to him, for private reasons, that he should win a Derby Race. (3.) That such a famous victory would be eminently popular with all classes of Indian natives, and inordinately increase their affection for British rule. (4.) That for some time past your Petitioner has been diligently training a quadruped which he fondly hopes may gain a victory. (5.) That said quadruped is a member of the fair sex. (6.) That she is a female horse of very docile disposition, but, being only recently extracted from shafts of dairy chariot, is a total neophyte in Derby racing.