It made me cross, and I tried my hind shoes on the mats in short order (a blooded horse is expected to be nervous and impatient at times). But the place was clean and comfortable, and the double line of horses were, I must say, a very decent lot--not show horses, but good of their kind. All were fresh littered and well blanketed, and seemed contented enough. “This is where I’m going to live, I guess,” I thought to myself. Pretty soon I was sure of it. For here came Missy in her riding clothes. “It’s all very nice,” I heard her tell the strange groom. “And I want you to give him every attention.” She opened one hand. There was a green piece of paper in it, and he bobbed his head as he took it. Then she opened her other hand--and there was some cracked corn. So it was on a Friday that I came to my new quarters. It was three days later before I saw Thunderbolt and his master. We all met in the Park. “They tell me Hector’s left Hart’s,” said Mr. England to Missy. “Now, Miss Sanborn,--you see I’ve found out who you are--it really wasn’t fair of you to go without letting me know about it. We’re both wool people, you must remember.” He spoke jokingly; but he looked a little worried. Missy straightened in her stirrups (she rides cross-saddle) and tightened my reins. I felt them tremble. “I’ve moved,” she said, “and so, of course, Hector had to come nearer me.” “I see--of course. Where are you now?” “At Hawley’s, uptown--a nice stable.” “Oh, yes.” (Mr. England looked hard at the dog’s head on the butt of his whip.) There was an awkward silence. Then, “Good-afternoon,” said Missy, and went on. It didn’t take me long to realise one thing about my new home. It was not so good as the old; in the main comforts it was, but not in little ones. We got two groomings instead of three; the litter was not deep, as at Hart’s; we were not watered so often; there was no more briny hay, and no flaxseed jelly. Several times, too, I saw delivery horses coming up a runway from the basement, and being put to heavy wagons. The horses on my floor, when they went out, were wickedly checked to make them hold up their heads. Their treatment of me was always the perfection of good stable manners, and among the whole lot there was only one that especially irritated me. He was a bay with black points, one of those under-sized, jack-rabbity little nuisances called a Shetland. “My! what airs!” he exclaimed one day as he was passing me in his governess’s cart. “I presume you’re much too fine to take hay-tea with the rest of us.” “Don’t class yourself with the others,” I answered. “You remind me of nothing so much as a flea drawing a wash-basket.” After that brush, he let me alone. And I tried to be contented at Hawley’s. I must say that Missy was kinder than ever to me. On apple days I got several, and on Saturdays a double quantity of stale bread and molasses. So why kick?