As the door closed Mr. Slick said, "It's a pity she don't go well in gear. The difficulty with those critters is to git them to start: arter that there is no trouble with them, if you don't check 'em too short. If you do they'll stop again, run back and kick like mad, and then Old Nick himself wouldn't start 'em. Pugwash, I guess, don't understand the natur' of the crittur; she'll never go kind in harness for him. _When I see a child_," said the Clockmaker, "_I always feel safe with these women-folk; for I have always found that the road to a woman's heart lies through her child_." "You seem," said I, "to understand the female heart so well, I make no doubt you are a general favorite among the fair sex." "Any man," he replied, "that understands horses has a pretty considerable fair knowledge of women, for they are jist alike in temper, and require the very identical same treatment. _Encourage the timid ones, be gentle and steady with the fractious, but lather the sulky ones like blazes._ "People talk an everlastin' sight of nonsense about wine, women and horses. I've bought and sold 'em all, I've traded in all of them, and I tell you there ain't one in a thousand that knows a grain about either on 'em. You hear folks say, Oh, such a man is an ugly-grained critter, he'll break his wife's heart; jist as if a woman's heart was as brittle as a pipe-stalk. The female heart, as far as my experience goes, is jist like a new india-rubber shoe: you may pull and pull at it till it stretches out a yard long, and then let go, and it will fly right back to its old shape. Their hearts are made of stout leather, I tell you; there's a plaguy sight of wear in 'em. "I never knowed but one case of a broken heart, and that was in t'other sex, one Washington Banks. He was a sneezer. He was tall enough to spit down on the heads of your grenadiers, and near about high enough to wade across Charlestown River, and as strong as a tow-boat. I guess he was somewhat less than a foot longer than the moral law and catechism, too. He was a perfect pictur' of a man; you couldn't fault him in no particular, he was so just a made critter; folks used to run to the winder when he passed, and say, 'There goes Washington Banks; beant he lovely!' I do believe there wasn't a gal in the Lowell factories that warn't in love with him. Sometimes, at intermission, on Sabbath-days, when they all came out together (an amazin' handsom' sight, too, near about a whole congregation of young gals), Banks used to say, 'I vow, young ladies, I wish I had five hundred arms to reciprocate one with each of you; but I reckon I have a heart big enough for you all; it's a whopper, you may depend, and every mite and morsel of it at your service.' 'Well, how you do act, Mr. Banks!' half a thousand little clipper-clapper tongues would say, all at the same time, and their dear little eyes sparklin' like so many stars twinklin' of a frosty night.