"Well, your Majesty, he was a clever one, you see, he was; they aren't generally. But he, he'd got a taste for his own set of harness--knew it by the smell, I suppose, and when they come to put it on him a bit of it broke, and he wouldn't wear anything else. That's how it all come about." "They tried, I suppose?" "Oh, they got it on him; and they got him out, before all the crowd, with the guns going and the handkerchiefs a-waving--Ah, no; but that was a funeral though--there weren't no handkerchiefs that day. Well, there he was; and when he felt they was all looking at him, and the perishables kept waiting behind----" "The perishables?" "The corpse, sir;--then he wouldn't move." "Very embarrassing, I must say." "You see, your Majesty, they couldn't beat him in public--not as he deserved; 'twouldn't have been respectful to what was there. They had to do that afterwards. But, believe me, he stopped the whole show for twenty minutes and more; and they never used _him_ again." "What became of him?" "Oh, he was just kept, in case; but he weren't never used--he was reckoned too risky after that. Oh, and he felt it too; I haven't a doubt but he did. They don't like only to be one of the extras, they don't." "What does that mean?" "Why, you see, sir, there's always four extras here, in case of accident; and believe me, your Majesty, when the four extras to-morrow find 'emselves left out they'll squeal for hours, and it won't be safe to go near 'em, not for days. Blood's a wonderful thing, sir, wonderful! And they know, just as well as you or me." "And what becomes of them when they grow old?" "Well, sir, they make saddle-cloths of 'em for the band of the forty-ninth Hussars. Your Majesty may have reckonized 'em; most people think it's giraffe skin, but it's really our old ponies." "So they come in useful even at the last?" "Oh, yes, sir, they ends well, one can't deny that; and they have to be in pretty good condition too. So they aren't none of 'em what you might call really old." "Very interesting," said the King. "What a great deal there is in the world that one doesn't know till one comes to inquire." "About horses? Your Majesty's right there!" said the man; and his tone spoke volumes of the things which would never be written, but which those who had the care of horses knew. As the King moved away from that brief colloquy, one phrase in particular stuck in his mind. "He was reckoned too risky after that." Was that, he wondered, what the Prime Minister was thinking about him now; had he, indeed, proved himself too risky for future use? If so there would be no yielding at the eleventh hour; and perhaps it was as well that to-morrow would see him harnessed to the royal coach for the last time. CHAPTER XV A DEED WITHOUT A NAME I