“How fer kin you go in a day to a loaded buggy, drawin’ five hundred pounds?” Marcus asked carelessly. “That has nothing to do with the case,” the yellow horse answered excitedly. “There’s nothing I know hez more to do with the case,” Marcus replied. “Kin ye yank a full car outer de tracks ten times in de mornin’?” said Muldoon. “Kin ye go to Keene—forty-two mile in an afternoon—with a mate,” said Rick; “an’ turn out bright an’ early next mornin’?” “Was there evah any time in your careah, suh—I am not referrin’ to the present circumstances, but our mutual glorious past—when you could carry a pretty girl to market hahnsome, an’ let her knit all the way on account o’ the smoothness o’ the motion?” said Tweezy. “Kin you keep your feet through the West River Bridge, with the narrer-gage comin’ in on one side, an’ the Montreal flyer the other, an’ the old bridge teeterin’ between?” said the Deacon. “Kin you put your nose down on the cow-catcher of a locomotive when you’re waitin’ at the depot an’ let ’em play ‘Curfew shall not ring to-night’ with the big brass bell?” “Kin you hold back when the brichin’ breaks? Kin you stop fer orders when your nigh hind leg’s over your trace an’ ye feel good of a frosty mornin’?” said Nip, who had only learned that trick last winter, and thought it was the crown of horsely knowledge. “What’s the use o’ talkin’?” said Tedda Gabler, scornfully. “What kin ye do?” “I rely on my simple rights—the inalienable rights o’ my unfettered horsehood. An’ I am proud to say I have never, since my first shoes, lowered myself to obeyin’ the will o’ man.” “Must ha’ had a heap o’ whips broke over yer yaller back,” said Tedda. “Hev ye found it paid any?” “Sorrer has been my portion since the day I was foaled. Blows an’ boots an’ whips an’ insults—injury, outrage, an’ oppression. I would not endoor the degradin’ badges o’ servitood that connect us with the buggy an’ the farm-wagon.” “It’s amazin’ difficult to draw a buggy ’thout traces er collar er breast-strap er somefin’,” said Marcus. “A Power-machine for sawin’ wood is most the only thing there’s no straps to. I’ve helped saw ’s much as three cord in an afternoon in a Power-machine. Slep’, too, most o’ the time, I did; but ’tain’t half as inte_res_tin’ ez goin’ daown-taown in the Concord.” “Concord don’t hender _you_ goin’ to sleep any,” said Nip. “My throat-lash! D’you remember when you lay down in the sharves last week, waitin’ at the piazza?” “Pshaw! That didn’t hurt the sharves. They wuz good an’ wide, an’ I lay down keerful. The folks kep’ me hitched up nigh an hour ’fore they started; an’ larfed—why, they all but lay down themselves with larfin’. Say, Boney, if you’ve got to be hitched _to_ anything that goes on wheels, you’ve got to be hitched _with_ somefin’.” “Go an’ jine a circus,” said Muldoon, “an’ walk on your hind legs. All de horses dat knows too much to work [he pronounced it ‘woik,’ New York fashion] jine de circus.”