in the knees a little. Hold on--hold
on, sir, or damme you'll be off!"

And sure enough I was within an ace of canting over, having lost a
stirrup, when the sergeant caught hold of me by the arm.

"I'll tell you what, gents," he said, "you'll never learn to ride in
this 'varsal world, unless you tries it without the irons. Nothing like
that for giving a man a sure seat So, Bill, take off the stirrups, will
you! Don't be afeard, gentlemen. I'll make riders of you yet, or my name
isn't Kickshaw."

Notwithstanding the comforting assurances of Kickshaw, I felt
considerably nervous. If I could not maintain my seat with the
assistance of the stirrups, what the mischief was I to do without them?
I looked rebelliously at Anthony's stirrup, but that intrepid individual
seemed to have nerved himself to meet any possible danger. His enormous
legs seemed calculated by nature to embrace the body of his charger, and
he sat erect like an overgrown Bacchus bestriding a kilderkin of beer.

"Trot, gentlemen!" and away we went. I shall never forget the agony of
that hour! The animal I rode was peculiarly decided in his paces; so
much so that at each step my _os coccygis_ came down with a violent
thump upon the saddle, and my teeth rattled in my head like dice in a
backgammon-box. How I managed to maintain my posture I cannot clearly
understand. Possibly the instinct of self-preservation proved the best
auxiliary to the precepts of Sergeant Kickshaw; for I held as tight a
hold of the saddle as though I had been crossing the bridge of Al Sirat,
with the flames of the infernal regions rolling and undulating beneath.

"Very good, gentlemen--capital!--you're improving vastly!" cried the
complimentary sergeant. "Nothing like the bare saddle after all--damme
but I'll make you take a four-barred gate in a week! Now sit steady.
Gallop!"

Croton oil was a joke to it! I thought my whole vitals were flying to
pieces as we bounded round the oval building, the speed gradually
increasing, until my diseased imagination suggested that we were going
at the pace of Lucifer. My head began to grow dizzy, and I clutched
convulsively at the pommel.

"An-tho-ny!" I gasped in monosyllables.

"Well?"

"How--do--you--feel?"

"Monstrous--shakey," replied Anthony in dis-syllables.

"I'm off!" cried I; and, losing my balance at the turn, I dropped like a
sack of turnips.

However, I was none the worse for it. Had it not been for Anthony, and
the dread