Last fall, however, the road passed into new hands, and the management changed the old mules on the line, and put on a lot of new and green horses. It happened to be a dreary, rainy day in November when the first new team was put in. They came along about three o’clock. Old Sue had been standing out in the pouring rain all day with her head bowed, and her stubby tail tucked in, and her black back dripping. She had never failed nor faltered. The tug-boy in an old rubber suit and battered tarpauling hat, had been out also, his coat shining with the wet. He and old Sue appeared to mind it astonishingly little. The gutters were running brimming full, and the cobble-stones were wet and slippery. The street cars were crowded inside and out, the wretched people on the platforms vainly trying to shield themselves with umbrellas held sideways. It was late in the afternoon when I first observed that there was trouble at the corner. I thought at first that there was an accident, but soon found that it was due to a pair of new, balking horses in a car. Old Sue was hitched to the tug, and was doing her part faithfully; finally she threw her weight on the collar, and by sheer strength bodily dragged the car, horses and all, around the curve and on up the straight track, until the horses, finding themselves moving, went off with a rush, I saw the tug-boy shake his head with pride, and heard him give a whoop of triumph. The next car went up all right; but the next had a new team, and the same thing occurred. The streets were like glass; the new horses got to slipping and balking, and old Sue had to drag them up as she did before. From this time it went from bad to worse: the rain changed to sleet, and the curve at Ninth became a stalling-place for every car. Finally, just at dark, there was a block there, and the cars piled up. I intended to have taken a car on my way home, but finding it stalled, I stepped into my friend Polk Miller’s drug-store, just on the corner, to get a cigar and to keep warm. I could see through the blurred glass of the door the commotion going on just outside, and could hear the shouts of the driver and of the tug-boy mingled with the clatter of horses’ feet as they reared and jumped, and the cracks of the tug-boy’s whip as he called to Sue, “Git up, Sue, git up, Sue.” Presently, I heard a shout, and then the tones changed, and things got quiet. A minute afterwards the door slowly opened, and the tug-boy came in limping, his old hat pushed back on his head, and one leg of his wet trousers rolled up to his knee, showing about four inches of black, ashy skin, which he leaned over and rubbed as he walked. His wet face wore a scowl, half pain, half anger. “Mist’ Miller, kin I use you’ telephone?” he asked, surlily. (The company had the privilege of using it by courtesy.) “Yes; there ’tis.” He limped up, and still rubbing his leg with one hand, took the ’phone off the hook with the other and put it to his ear.