You can easily understand that my boyish heart overflowed with pride and joy and gratitude. A great many years have elapsed since that time, but I have n't forgotten and I never shall forget the delight of that moment, when I realized that I had a colt of my own--a real, live colt, and a Morgan colt, at that! "How old is he, father?" I asked. "A week old, come to-morrow," said father. "Has Judge Phipps seen him yet?" I asked. "No; nobody has seen him but you and me and the hired man." Judge Phipps was the justice of the peace. I had a profound respect for him, for what he did n't know about horses was n't worth knowing; I was sure of this, because the judge himself told me so. One of the first duties to which I applied myself was to go and get the judge and show him the colt. The judge praised the pretty creature inordinately, enumerating all his admirable points and predicting a famous career for him. The judge even went so far as to express the conviction that in due time my colt would win "imperishable renown and immortal laurels as a competitor at the meetings of the Hampshire County Trotting Association," of which association the judge was the president, much to the scandal of his estimable wife, who viewed with pious horror her husband's connection with the race-track. "What do you think I ought to name my colt?" I asked of the judge. "When I was about your age," the judge answered, "I had a colt and I named him Royal. He won all the premiums at the county fair before he was six year old." That was quite enough for me. To my thinking every utterance of the judge's was ex cathedra; moreover, in my boyish exuberance, I fancied that this name would start my colt auspiciously upon a famous career; I began at once to think and to speak of him as the prospective winner of countless honors. From the moment when I first set eyes on Royal I was his stanch friend; even now, after the lapse of years, I cannot think of my old companion without feeling here in my breast a sense of gratitude that that honest, patient, loyal friend entered so largely into my earlier life. Twice a day I used to trudge down the lane to the pasture-lot to look at the colt, and invariably I was accompanied by a troop of boy acquaintances who heartily envied me my good luck, and who regaled me constantly with suggestions of what they would do if Royal were their colt. Royal soon became friendly with us all, and he would respond to my call, whinnying to me as I came down the lane, as much as to say: "Good morning to you, little master! I hope you are coming to have a romp with me." And, gracious! how he would curve his tail and throw up his head and gather his short body together and trot around the pasture-lot on those long legs of his! He enjoyed life, Royal did, as much as we boys enjoyed it.