“I got the word from an old horsey-man whom I befriended once.”
“Did you ever use it before?”
“No! I just rethought of it a moment or two before I tried it out.”
“Lordy! I shouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. You know, Beelzebub is positively the worst mare in the Valley. Sol Hanson will throw a fit of delight when he hears about this.
“I’ve heard some queer things about horses, Phil. I once knew an old horse dealer in the East of Scotland. He owned a famous Clydesdale stud stallion. He used to travel with it all over the country. Old Sommerville, they called the man, was a terrible booze artist. He was drunk day and night. But never so drunk that he couldn’t look after himself and his stallion. You know, just always half-full of whisky. Well,––there wasn’t a paddock that could hold that stallion. It had killed several men and had created tremendous havoc time and again in stables. If it had not been for its qualities as a perfect specimen of a horse, the Government would have ordered its destruction. A special friend of old Sommerville’s died, and, on the day of the funeral, Sommerville swore he wouldn’t taste liquor for twenty-four hours. He didn’t. That night he was taking the stallion from one village to another. He failed to turn up at the village he intended making for, and next morning the stallion was discovered miles away, while later in the day a farm-hand came upon a mass of bloody bones and flesh pounded to mince meat among the earth at the side of a road.”
“I quite believe it,” said Phil, “because I have heard before somewhere that a horse––no matter how vicious it may be––will never interfere with a man smelling of liquor.”
“Well,––I guess the horse had more sense than some of us have,” said Jim.
“Sound horse sense, I suppose,” laughed Phil.