number two was prone with all his weight upon his shoulders, and the cowboy on his hind quarters, catching at his tail with his left hand. That bull calf’s struggle to rise was as superb as Bertram Risingham’s in _Rokeby_, and as futile; for the cowboy had caught his tail and passed it between his hind legs, and by pulling hard kept one leg brandishing aimlessly in the air, while the weight of the ranche-men subdued his forequarters. The ring was passed through his upper lip, and the lasso was off his neck in a few seconds more, and the ranche-men turned to mount, saying to the cowboy, “Just hold on a minute.” The cowboy passed the tail back between the hind legs, grasped the end firmly, and stood expectant. Boliborus lay quiet for a second or two, and then bounded to his feet, glaring round in rage and pain to choose which, of his foes to go for, when he became aware of something wrong behind, and looking round, realised the state of the case. Down went his head, and round he went with a rush for his own tail end, but the tail and boy were equal to the occasion, and the latter still holding on tight by the former, sent back a defiant kick at the end of each rush, which, however, never got within two feet of the bull’s nose, and could be only looked upon as a proper defiance. Then Boliborus tried stealing round to take his tail by surprise, but all to as little purpose, when the ranche-men, who were now both mounted, to end the farce, rode round in front of the beast, caught his eye, and cried, “Let go.” Whisking his freed tail in the air he made a rush, but only a half-hearted one, at the nearest, who just wheeled his horse, and as he passed administered a contemptuous thwack over his loins with a lasso. Boliborus now stood looking down his nose at the appendant ring, revolving his next move, with so comic an expression that I burst into a roar of laughter, in which the rest joined out of courtesy. This was too much for him, as ridicule proves for so many two-legged calves, so he tossed his head in the air, gave a flirt with his heels, and trotted off after his mother, a sadder, and let us hope, wiser bull-calf; in any case, a ringed one, and bound in future to get his own living. On my ride home my mind was much occupied by that cowboy, who rode along by me--telling how he had been reading _Gulliver’s Travels_ again (amongst other things), found it wasn’t a mere boy’s book, and wanted to get a Life of Swift--in his battered old outfit, for which no Jew in Rag-Fair would give him five shillings. The last time I had seen him, two years ago, he had just left Hallebury, a bit of a dandy, with very tight clothes, and so stiff a white collar on, that on his arrival he had been nicknamed “the Parson.”