“They are such hardy little things,” she said, enthusiastically, “we had two of them once, and they always lived on grass. Of course they never did any work really, and I remember they used to bite anyone who tried to catch them—but still I think one of them would be just the thing.”
“I beg your pardon, Miss,” said the waiter, who was taking away our breakfast things, “but thim ponies is very arch for the likes of you to drive. One o’ thim’d be apt to lie down in the road with yerself and the thrap, and maybe it’d be dark night before he’d rise up for ye. Faith, there was one o’ them was near atin’ the face off a cousin o’ me own that was enticin’ him to stand up out o’ the way o’ the mail-car.”
My second cousin looked furtively at me, and rose from her seat in some confusion.
“Oh, I think we should be able to manage a pony,” she said, with a sudden resumption of the dignity that I had noticed she had laid aside since her arrival in Galway. “Is there—er—any two-wheeled—er—trap to be had?”
“Sure there is, Miss, and a nate little yoke it’d be for the two of ye, though the last time it was out one of the shafts——”
“Is it in the yard?” interrupted my second cousin, severely.
“It is, Miss, but the step took the ground——”
My cousin here left the room, and I followed her. A few moments later the trap was wheeled into the yard for our inspection. It was apparently a segment of an antediluvian brougham, with a slight flavour about it of a hansom turned the wrong way, though its great-grandfather had probably been a highly-connected sedan-chair. The door was at the back, as in an omnibus, the floor was about six inches above the ground, and the two people whom it with difficulty contained had to sit with their backs to the horse, rocking and swinging between the two immense wheels, of which they had a dizzy prospect through the little side windows.
“There it is for ye, now!” said the waiter, triumphantly. He had followed us downstairs and was negligently polishing a tablespoon with his napkin. “And Jimmy,” indicating the ostler, “’ll know of the very horse that’ll be fit to put under it.”
“No,” we said faintly, “that would never do; we want to drive ourselves.”