“We have no downright bad ’uns in this stable. What’s the use?” said the Master of Horse calmly. “They are all good beasts and, one with another, must cost more than a thousand each. This year’s new ones bought from Bombay and the pick of our own studs, are a hundred strong about. May be more. Yes, they look all right enough; but you can never know what they are going to turn out. Live-stock is very uncertain.” “And how are the stables managed: how do you make room for the fresh stock?” “Something this way. Here are all the new ones and Parrott’s lot, and the English colts that Maharaja Pertab Singh brought out with him from Home. _Winterlake_ out o’ _Queen’s Consort_, that chestnut with the two white stockings you’re looking at now. Well, next hot weather we shall see what they’re made of and which is who. There’s so many that the trainer hardly knows ’em one from another till they begin to be a good deal forward. Those that haven’t got the pace, or that the Maharaja don’t fancy, they’re taken out and sold for what they’ll bring. The man who takes the horses out has a good job of it. He comes back and says:--‘I sold such and such for so much, and here’s the money!’ That’s all. Well, our rejections are worth having. They have taken prizes at the Poona Horse Show. See for yourself. Is there one of those there that you wouldn’t be glad to take for a hack, and look well after too? Only they’re no use to us, and so out they go by the score. We’ve got sixty riding-boys, perhaps more, and they’ve got their work cut out to keep them all going. What you’ve seen are only the stables. We’ve got one stud at Bellara, eighty miles out, and they come in sometimes in droves of three and four hundred from the stud. They raise Marwaris there too, but that’s entirely under native management. We’ve got nothing to do with that. The natives reckon a Marwari the best country-bred you can lay hands on; and some of them are beauties! Crests on ’em like the top of a wave. Well there’s that stud, and another stud and, reckoning one with another, I should say the Maharaja has nearer twelve hundred than a thousand horses of his own. For this place here, two wagon-loads of grass come in every day from Marwar Junction. Lord knows how many saddles and bridles we’ve got. I never counted. I suppose we’ve about forty carriages, not counting the ones that get shabby and are stacked in places in the city, as I suppose you’ve seen. We take ’em out in the morning, a regular string all together, brakes and all; but the prettiest turn-out we ever turned out was Lady Dufferin’s pony four-in-hand. Walers--thirteen-two the wheelers I think, and thirteen-one the leaders. They took prizes at Poona. That _was_ a pretty turn-out. The prettiest in India. Lady Dufferin, she drove it when the Viceroy was down here last year. There are bicycles and tricycles in the carriage department too. I don’t know how many, but when the Viceroy’s