As he is engaged on one of these a lad runs in panting and out of breath with a message as "'ow Mr. Stiles would be main glad if Mayster Billings would step over and look at t' red coo, as 'e's afeard on 'er dropping." "Right, my lad," says Joe; "just nip down and tell my missus to give yer my medicine-box and that bottle of stuff as stands in the winder, and then come back wi' 'em." It may be gathered from this that Joe combines the office of cow-doctor with his other employment; and I may safely say that a better one of the old-fashioned school could hardly be found anywhere. Certainly his remedies for both cow and horse are simple to a degree. Nevertheless, he is entirely successful, and by a sort of rule of thumb dispenses medicine, of which the analysis may be peculiar, but the efficacy undoubted. He has the greatest contempt for all veterinary surgeons, and is wont to say he "would as soon shoot the beast as let them mess any cow of his about." Patent medicine is another of his pet aversions, and it is a sort of standing joke to ask him his opinion of "Hoplemuroma" or "Neurasthenhipponskellisterizon." "Oh, get out. Don't come blathering me with yer hops and skillyrison!" he will say. "'Ow the deuce do I know what muck they puts into 'em? Suppose I was to call one of my oils 'Smithyjoebillingtonyeyson,' what the ---- would old Farmer Stiles say, and what better stuff would it be for all its crack-jaw name? No, damme, call a spade a spade. None o' that new-fangled bosh for Joe Billings." Joe has been at the smithy for some five-and-twenty years now, and though he numbers considerably over fifty years of age, is as hale and hearty a man as one would wish to see. One failing he has got which generally attacks him on Saturday nights, and that is a miscalculation as to the amount of liquor he can comfortably carry. A dangerous man is he to cross when in his cups, moreover, for his arm is as powerful as the leg of a horse, and he has besides got some knowledge of the noble art. Indeed it is within the recollection of many a Lappingtonian how Joe at one time fought with the "Brummagem Pet" for twenty-five pounds a-side, and how, though terribly mauled, he stuck to it like a man, and, blinded as he was, managed in the sixteenth round to knock "the Pet" out of time with a terrific left-hander on the temple, shouting as he delivered the blow: "There's a taste of Bullshire for yer!" However, it is not often that the sturdy Blacksmith gets into a row, for he would far sooner sit still and listen to an account of a good run or the records of some bygone champion of the Ring. Indeed, everything connected with sport of any kind goes straight to his soul, and that there are few sporting subjects you can mention he does not know something about is evident from the pertinent remarks he occasionally lets fall.