"Just look at the pair on 'em!" said the pal. "Why, to see that mare walkin' down the yard, you might think as she was a little gel goin' to Sunday-school. But you'll never persuade _me_ as she isn't foxin'. She'll do a down on him yet, you mark my word! She's as tricky as a woman. I can see it in her eye." "Ha!" said Tom, "that reminds me of something his Lordship once said to me. It 'appened at the Dublin 'Orse Show, as his Lordship was one o' the judges, with me by to 'elp 'im. There was a roan mare just brought into the ring, and his Lordship says to me, lookin' 'ard at the mare all the time, 'Tom, my boy,' he says, 'did you ever 'ave a sweetheart?' 'Yes, my Lord,' I says, 'several.' 'Are they livin' or dead?' says he. 'I never killed none on 'em, my Lord,' I says; 'that's all _I_ knows about it.' 'Treat 'em 'andsome, my boy, treat 'em 'andsome,' says he in the solemnest voice you ever 'eard; 'it's desperate bad luck on a man as has to do wi' 'osses when a' angry sweetheart dies on him. And look 'ere, Tom,' he says in a whisper, 'from the way the back o' my 'ead's a-tinglin', _it's a' angry sweetheart as we're judgin' now_.--Pass her down,' he says to the groom as were leadin' the mare, 'pass her down. Divil a prize shall that one have! She's a dangerous bad 'oss." III Among Professor Scattergood's numerous admirers there have always been some to whom his arguments for the Friendliness of the Universe proved unconvincing. They would begin by pulling his logic to pieces, and conclude by saying, with the air of people who keep their strongest argument to the last: "It looks, at all events, as though the friendly Universe had done our good Professor a most unfriendly turn by depriving him of Ethelberta and substituting the present Mrs Scattergood in her place." And there was no denying the force of the argument. For half a long lifetime John Scattergood had lived his earnest days with little aid from those sources of spiritual vitality upon which most of us depend. Love in all its finer essences had been denied him--denied him, as he knew better than anybody, by that very Universe whose friendliness he had set himself to prove. Among the many lonely souls who live in crowded places it would be hard to find one lonelier than he. Even the demonstrated friendliness of the Universe did not seem to thaw his heart, or to break down the barriers of his reserve. The surest means of discovering his inner mind was to put your ear to the keyhole on one of the many occasions when he was talking to himself. "_Wie brennt mein alte Wunde!_" is what you would often hear him say.