I heard a rustling among the bedding as the horses and ponies moved their limbs to help their minds digest my speech.
"Same here," said Attaboy. "You and your master can ride to Hudson Bay for aught I care. Seems to me you're a pair of snobs and bosses anyway."
"Shut up, you fool Hackney," said a sudden voice, and Largs the Clydesdale's heavy neigh filled the stable. "You're insulting this little fellow, who is one of the best bits of ponyflesh I ever saw. Here he is offering to take your master over a dark stretch of road not known to him as it is to you. He may break his leg and he knows it, and we all know what happens when a pony breaks his leg."
"I don't want the new pony shot," wailed a sad voice from the tiny Bressay's stall. "I don't care much about him, but my little Big Wig loves him. He told me so and made me jealous."
"Attaboy," called Apache Girl in her queer sudden voice, "my Cassowary won't want anything to happen to her brother. If you dare to oppose this new little beast, who is as conceited as he is smart, you'll have a mysterious trouble to-morrow that will land you in the hospital stall."
This was a dreadful threat, and everybody kept still for a minute. Then Attaboy said in a would-be boastful voice, "You think you can hurt me. Just you try it."
"I shan't speak again," said Apache Girl. "You all know I speak seldom, but when I do I keep my word. I know some tricks handed down from my Spanish ancestors."
Attaboy was awed. Ponies, like human beings, are afraid of the mysterious. Apache Girl had a bad-tempered streak in her, and her threat really decided him to give in to me.
While he thought matters over, every horse and pony that had not spoken lifted up a voice for me, and when he still did not open his mouth, the enormous Largs addressed him again.
"Good for you, old fellow," I thought as I listened to Largs. "For sound, solid, common sense commend me to a faithful old work-horse."