"My dear boy!" she said, "my dear boy; it's such a satisfaction to have you under my roof!"
The black horse reared on end, the patriarch sawing at its mouth. Mrs. Wannop said unconcernedly: "Stephen Joel! I haven't done talking."
Tietjens was gazing enragedly at the lower part of the horse's sweat-smeared stomach.
"You soon will have," he said, "with the girth in that state. Your neck will be broken."
"Oh, I don't think so," Mrs. Wannop said. "Joel only bought the turn-out yesterday."
Tietjens addressed the driver with some ferocity:
"Here; get down, you," he said. He held, himself, the head of the horse whose nostrils were wide with emotion: it rubbed its forehead almost immediately against his chest. He said: "Yes! yes! There! there!" Its limbs lost their tautness. The aged driver scrambled down from the high seat, trying to come down at first forward and then backwards. Tietjens fired indignant orders at him:
"Lead the horse into the shade of that tree. Don't touch his bit: his mouth's sore. Where did you get this job lot? Ashford market: thirty pounds: it's worth more. . . . But, blast you, don't you see you've got a thirteen hands pony's harness for a sixteen and a half hands horse. Let the bit out: three holes: it's cutting the animal's tongue in half. . . . This animal's a rig. Do you know what a rig is? If you give it corn for a fortnight it will kick you and the cart and the stable to pieces in five minutes one day." He led the conveyance, Mrs. Wannop triumphantly complacent and all, into a patch of shade beneath elms.
"Loosen that bit, confound you," he said to the driver. "Ah! you're afraid."
He loosened the bit himself, covering his fingers with greasy harness polish which he hated. Then he said: