and quite good yet; but seven years does for most of us. What's that you're giving me? Sugar, did you say? I don't know about that--I'd rather not; but if you had an apple now, or a bit of bread, I'll eat it and welcome.' You see, he was a common horse, this--not a gentleman, but a good-tempered, nice fellow, that wouldn't give his driver much trouble. But they're not all like that. Listen now to a cab-horse. 'Did you say you'd been talking to a bus-horse? Nasty low creatures, not fit to talk to! Now I can tell you all you want to know. Yes, I'm only a cab-horse now, it's true, but once I was in a gentleman's carriage--one of a pair, with a coachman and footman on the box, and my lady herself used to pat my nose and give me sugar. They were grand times then--that is, they seem grand when I think of them now--very little to do, and we were scrubbed and polished until our coats were like satin. In the afternoon we danced round the Park. Yes, I say danced, because there was a horrid thing called a bearing-rein that hurt us so much that we had to dance and throw out our legs, and people said it was splendid. It made me feel so angry that I didn't know what to do. But then I had a bad temper from the beginning, and it's my temper that has done for me. One day I wheeled round and leaped over the traces, and kicked the coachman hard. We were standing in the mews, and I dashed out and ran away, and the other horse fell down, and the carriage was smashed. Well, then I was sold, and---- But I'm not going to tell you about that. Yes, I know it's my own fault, and I know I shouldn't have been a cab-horse if I'd behaved; but I was wicked, and I used to bite, and now I've been whipped and beaten until I daren't do anything. Yes, even now I kick, and I hate my life and I hate my driver. He gives me sugar sometimes, too; but that's just because he doesn't want me to run away and dash him off his box, but I shall some day. I shall smash him up against a lamp-post just because I hate everyone. Oh, it's not a fine life, I can tell you. It's all very well when I stand here waiting; but perhaps just when I've got my nose into my bag and begun to eat I hear a sharp whistle twice, and that means someone wants a hansom, and my master whisks away my bag, jumps on to his box, and gives me a cut that makes me furious, and we go galloping round the streets to see where the whistle comes from. And when we find the right house, where someone is waiting, perhaps a man jumps in, and says: "To the station as fast as you can, and half a crown if you do it in a quarter of an hour." Well, of course, it's my master who gets the money, but it's I that have to earn it. So we tear off full speed, and other things get in the way, and I have to pull up suddenly, and the horrid curb-bit cuts my mouth till I could rear with the pain. Then off again, and at last, all hot and angry, we dash up to the station, and the man inside leaps out and throws up the money and runs off.