back in the old Master's attic, shivering under the rusty
stove, which never had no coals in it, with the Master flat on his back
on the cold floor, with his clothes on. And I'd wake up scared and
whimpering, and find myself on the new Master's cot with his hand on the
quilt beside me; and I'd see the glow of the big stove, and hear the
high-quality horses below-stairs stamping in their straw-lined boxes,
and I'd snoop the sweet smell of hay and harness-soap and go to sleep
again.

The stables was my jail, so the Master said, but I don't ask no better
home than that jail.

"Now, Kid," says he, sitting on the top of a bucket upside down, "you've
got to understand this. When I whistle it means you're not to go out of
this 'ere yard. These stables is your jail. If you leave 'em I'll have
to leave 'em too, and over the seas, in the County Mayo, an old mother
will 'ave to leave her bit of a cottage. For two pounds I must be
sending her every month, or she'll have naught to eat, nor no thatch
over 'er head. I can't lose my place, Kid, so see you don't lose it for
me. You must keep away from the kennels," says he; "they're not for the
likes of you. The kennels are for the quality. I wouldn't take a litter
of them woolly dogs for one wag of your tail, Kid, but for all that they
are your betters, same as the gentry up in the big house are my betters.
I know my place and keep away from the gentry, and you keep away from
the champions."

So I never goes out of the stables. All day I just lay in the sun on the
stone flags, licking my jaws, and watching the grooms wash down the
carriages, and the only care I had was to see they didn't get gay and
turn the hose on me. There wasn't even a single rat to plague me. Such
stables I never did see.

"Nolan," says the head groom, "some day that dog of yours will give you
the slip. You can't keep a street-dog tied up all his life. It's against
his natur'." The head groom is a nice old gentleman, but he doesn't know
everything. Just as though I'd been a street-dog because I liked it! As
if I'd rather poke for my vittles in ash-heaps than have 'em handed me
in a wash-basin, and would sooner bite and fight than be polite and
sociable. If I'd had mother there I couldn't have asked for nothing
more. But I'd think of her snooping in the gutters, or freezing of
nights under the bridges, or, what's worst of all, running through the
hot streets with her tongue down, so wild and crazy for a drink t