“I’ll borrow one of those pig-dealers’ stools,” she said. “Do be serious, Jinny.” “And do you suppose my work is a joke?” “But you can’t squeeze in that crowd? Suppose we find out the owner and get one of the black horses by private treaty?” “And pay the market fee? Not me! Besides, he’ll want a top price and there’s more fun and chances in bidding. Oh look! that poor Cleveland’s got himself all tangled up! Do help him!” It was not easy to release the animal which, having encoiled its legs in the rope attached to its staple, was getting more and more frightened as its own efforts lassoed it the tighter. Jinny’s heart beat fast lest Will should get kicked, and still faster at the nonchalance with which he accomplished his dangerous task. “Thank you,” she said sweetly, when the animal stood shaking, but quiet. “It’s not your horse.” “But I asked you to do it.” “Then you might do what I ask _you_?” he retorted. She frowned. She did not like this tricky tit-for-tat. It was unchivalrous. It undid his deed of derring-do. “You must not interfere with my business,” she said severely, and swept to the nearest door. “Jinny! Where are you going?” He had followed her. “To the bar!” she said solemnly, perceiving the nature of the forbidden chamber. “Why can’t I have a drink and a smoke? What will you take?” He gasped, believing her serious. So female smoking even in public was no impossible foreboding. To this buffet, blockaded by laughing, swilling, tobacco-clouded masculinity, mitigated only—if not indeed aggravated—by a barmaid, Jinny was actually going to wriggle her way! And the buffet did not even sell milk! “You shan’t go,” he said in a low hoarse tone, clutching at her arm. “By God, you shan’t!” But he succeeded only in grasping her dangling horn, and, in her dart forward, it was left in his hand. “I didn’t ask you to ‘take’ that!” she laughed back as she crossed the threshold. “I meant, what’s your drink?” “Jinny!” he breathed, his voice frozen. “Mine’s ink!” she called out gaily, and the males, now aware of her presence, vied with one another to pass the bottle and pen on the counter to her, together with the little bowl of sand, all of which she bore to the quiet side of the room, where a protracted desk supplied facilities for notes and accounts. Reassured, but still resentful, Will stood at the door, awkwardly holding her horn with its bit of broken girdle, and watching her protectively as she scribbled on a piece of paper, and blotted it with the sand. Then coming back to him, she took away her horn—not without a reproachful glance at the snapped cord—and putting her folded paper into his hand instead, glided past him and was lost in the hurly-burly. Disconsolate, yet excited, he opened the note, and read this wholly unexpected quatrain: SWEARING