"It is all a mistake," continues Mr. Filbert, commenting on certain vulgar errors respecting race-horses; "thorough-breds are not nearly so rampagious as mongrels and half-breds. The two horses in this stall are gentlefolks, with as good blood in their veins as the best nobleman in the land. They would be just as back'ard in doing any thing unworthy of a lady or gentleman, as any lord or lady in St. James's--such as kicking, or rearing, or shying, or biting. The pedigree of every horse that starts in any great race, is to be traced as regularly up to James the First's Arabian, or to Cromwell's White Turk, or to the Darley or Godolphin barbs, as your great English families are to the Conqueror. The worst thing they will do, is running away now and then with their jockeys. And what's that? Why, only the animal's animal-spirit running away with _him_. They are not," adds Mr. Filbert, with a merry twinkle in his eye, "the only young bloods that are fond of going too fast." To our question whether he considers that a race-horse _could_ go too fast, Mr. Filbert gives a jolly negative, and remarks that it is all owing to high feeding and fine air; "for, mind you, horses get much better air to breathe than men do, and more of it." All this while the two boys are sibillating lustily while rubbing and polishing the coats of their horses; which are as soft as velvet, and much smoother. When the little grooms come to the fetlock and pastern, the chamois-leather they have been using is discarded as too coarse and rough, and they rub away down to the hoofs with their sleek and their plump hands. Every wish they express, either in words or by signs, is cheerfully obeyed by the horse. The terms the quadruped seems to be on with the small biped, are those of the most easy and intimate friendship. They thoroughly understand one another. We feel a little ashamed of our mistrust of so much docility, and leave the stable with much less awe of a race-horse than we entered it. "And now, Mr. Filbert, one delicate question--What security is there against these horses being drugged, so that they may lose a race?" Mr. Filbert halts, places his legs apart, and his arms akimbo, and throws into his reply a severe significance, mildly tinged with indignation. He commences with saying, "I'll tell you where it is: there is a deal more said about foul play and horses going amiss, than there need be." "Then the boys are never heavily bribed?"