“Well, what do you suppose? You’re a judge.”
“More than I would give, I’ll bet a cookie.”
“Not if you was as anxious as I am to show Hopkins that he can’t drive by everything on the pike.”
“I thought you loved a good horse because he was a good horse,” said the widow, rather disapprovingly.
“I do, but I could love him a good deal harder if he would stay in front of Hopkins’s best.”
“Does he know you’ve got this one?”
“Yes, and he’s been blowing round town that he is waiting to pick me up on the road some day and make my five hundred dollars look like a pewter quarter.”
“So you gave five hundred dollars for him, did you?” laughed the widow.
“Is it too much?”
“Um-er,” hesitated the widow, glancing along the graceful lines of the powerful trotter, “I suppose not if you can beat the squire.”