“And that’s all about that poor old chestnut, and I daresay you’ll laugh at me for being so soft about him, but we all have strange feelings at times, and I hope as everyone as puts on a bit of crape for one as is gone to his long home, feels his loss as truly as I did that of my poor old ’oss.
“‘Here have I been fidgetted to death about you,’ the missus says. ‘Come, sit down, and have a bit of breakfast. Can’t eat? Nonsense! What?’
“‘The poor old chestnut’s dead,’ I says; and she never pressed me no more.
“But, lor’ ma’am, only to think of it. I began telling you about my rheumatics coming on again here, and went right off about the old chestnut horse.”
“Poor horse!” I said, and rose to go.
“Must you go so soon, ma’am,” he said; “well, yes, I suppose so, but time does seem so long here listening to other fellows who are ill and groaning, and your coming did cheer me up so it made my tongue run like anything. Good bye, ma’am, good bye.”
And now, once more out in dreary Gower Street, and even as I went along some one was being taken towards the hospital in a cab, but I had not the heart then to look within.