Of course it wasn’t always plain sailing. There was the time when the new wagon broke down on River Street and its load had to be transferred to The Ark while it was hauled back to Saunders for a new wheel, Saunders, to his credit be it said, performing the repair without charge. And there was the time when Spider mutinied, refusing flatly to break his back lifting trunks without ever being permitted the fun of driving. That difficulty was smoothed over by Willard, who persuaded Jerry to allow Spider to do the driving every other trip. But on the whole the new arrangement worked very well and in the course of time Julius Cæsar became reconciled to his new duties and seemed almost to enjoy them. There were unnumbered verbal battles between Jerry and Spider, on one side, and Pat Herron and Johnny Green on the other. They supplied excitement and Jerry was very keen for them. He quite liked matching his wits against Pat’s and usually came off victorious, as on one occasion shortly after the new wagon began its duties, when Pat sat on the box of the hack, Johnny lolled on the seat of Connors’ wagon and Jerry and Spider drove magnificently up to await the 11:34. “’Tis a fine horse ye have there,” remarked Pat kindly. “’Tis so,” responded Jerry. “And how old might he be, d’ye say?” “He was four his last birthday.” “Is it so? Four hundred! Think o’ that now! Sure, he don’t look more’n a hundred and fifty!” “I take such good care of him,” said Jerry sweetly. “Every now and then he gets currycombed, you know.” Jerry glanced interestedly at the horses hitched to the hack. “Ever try it, Pat, on those old cripples of yours?” “’Tis a fine way he has of knobbin’ his head,” returned Pat, ignoring the aspersion. “By that you’ll be knowin’ he’s not asleep, likely?” “N-no,” replied Jerry, “he always does that when he’s down here. Funny, isn’t it? Seems as if he was sort of tired. Bet you anything, Pat, if you went around the station he’d stop!” “Is that so? Sure, he was born tired, that horse was. ’Tis a cryin’ shame to drive a beast like that. Let him be to die, why don’t ye?” “Because if I did,” replied Jerry promptly, “you’d dig him out of his grave and hitch him to your hack. Is it so that you never take the harness off those nags, Pat, for fear they’ll fall to pieces?” Whereupon Pat lost his temper and began to sputter, and before he could think of a sufficiently caustic response The Ark chugged up and caused a diversion.