"Jacobs," he said, "did one of them ever refuse to go?—on a public occasion, I mean."
"Well, yes, your Majesty, it did once happen; before my time, though. One of 'em—ah, it was at a funeral, too—he stuck his heels into the ground and couldn't be got to start, not for love or money."
"Which did they offer him?"
"Ask pardon, your Majesty?—Oh, just my manner of speaking, that was. Wouldn't go except on his own terms."
"And what were they?"
"Well, your Majesty, he was a clever one, you see, he was; they aren't generally. But he, he'd got a taste for his own set of harness—knew it by the smell, I suppose, and when they come to put it on him a bit of it broke, and he wouldn't wear anything else. That's how it all come about."
"They tried, I suppose?"
"Oh, they got it on him; and they got him out, before all the crowd, with the guns going and the handkerchiefs a-waving—Ah, no; but that was a funeral though—there weren't no handkerchiefs that day. Well, there he was; and when he felt they was all looking at him, and the perishables kept waiting behind——"
"The perishables?"
"The corpse, sir;—then he wouldn't move."