the only part of the arrangement
that refused to fit in was the filly. Even while Fanny Fitz was
finishing her toilet, high-pitched howls of objurgation were rising,
alarmingly, from the stable-yard, and on reaching the scene of action
she was confronted by the spectacle of the ostler being hurtled across
the yard by the filly, to whose head he was clinging, while two helpers
upheld the shafts of the outside car from which she had fled. All were
shouting directions and warnings at the tops of their voices, the hotel
dog was barking, the filly alone was silent, but her opinions were
unmistakable.

A waiter in shirt-sleeves was leaning comfortably out of a window,
watching the fray and offering airy suggestion and comment.

"It's what I'm telling them, miss," he said easily, including Fanny Fitz
in the conversation; "if they get that one into Recess to-night it'll
not be under a side-car."

"But the man I bought her from," said Fanny Fitz, lamentably addressing
the company, "told me that he drove his mother to chapel with her last
Sunday."

"Musha then, may the divil sweep hell with him and burn the broom
afther!" panted the ostler in bitter wrath, as he slewed the filly to a
standstill. "I wish himself and his mother was behind her when I went
putting the crupper on her! B'leeve me, they'd drop their chat!"

"Sure I knew that young Geogheghan back in Westport," remarked the
waiter, "and all the good there is about him was a little handy talk.
Take the harness off her, Mick, and throw a saddle on her. It's little
I'd think meself of canthering her into Recess!"

"How handy ye are yerself with your talk!" retorted the ostler; "it's
canthering round the table ye'll be doing, and it's what'll suit ye
betther!"

Fanny Fitz began to laugh. "He might ride the saddle of mutton!" she
said, with a levity that, under the circumstances, did her credit.
"You'd better take the harness off, and you'll have to get her to Recess
for me somehow."

The ostler took no notice of this suggestion; he was repeating to
himself: "Ride the saddle o' mutton! By dam, I never heard the like o'
that! Ride the saddle o' mutton--!" He suddenly gave a yell of laughing,
and in the next moment the startled filly dragged the reins from his
hand with a tremendous plunge, and in half a dozen bounds was out of the
yard gate and clattering down the road.

There was an instant of petrifaction. "Diddlety--iddlety--idlety!"
chanted the waiter with far