“Where’s the grass-cutter,” I shouted, jumping off him in about as great a fury as I ever was in.  “I suppose he knows how to make this devil go!”

“Grass-cutter went away last night, sahib.  Me see him try to open stable door and go away.  Me see him no more.”

I used pretty well all the bad language I knew in one blast.  Biddy began to walk away, laughin till I felt as if I could kick him.

“I’m going to have a front seat for this trotting match,” he said, stopping to get his wind.  “Spectators along the route requested to provide themselves with pitchforks and fireworks, I suppose, in case the champion pony should show any of his engaging little temper.  Never mind, old man, I’ll see you through this, there’s no use in getting into a wax about it.  I’m going shares with you, the way we always do.”

I can’t say I responded graciously, I rather think I cursed him and everything else in heaps.  When he was gone I began to think of what could be done.

“Get out the dog-cart,” I said, as a last chance.  “Perhaps he’ll go in harness.”

We wheeled the cart up to him, got him harnessed to it, and in two minutes that pony was walking, trotting, anything I wanted—­can’t explain why—­one of the mysteries of horseflesh.  I drove him out through the Cashmere Gate, passing Biddy on the way, and feeling a good deal the better for it, and as soon as I got on to the flat stretch of road outside the gate I tried what the pony could do.  He went even better than I thought he could, very rough and uneven, of course, but still promising.  I brought him home, and had him put into training at once, as carefully as if he was going for the Derby.  I chose the course, took the six-mile stretch of road from the Cashmere gate to Sufter Jung’s tomb, and drove him over it every day.  It was a splendid course—­level as a table, and dead straight for the most part—­and after a few days he could do it in about forty minutes out and thirty-five back.  People began to talk then, especially as the pony’s look and shape were improving each day, and after a little time every one was planking his money on one way or another—­Biddy putting on a thousand on his own account—­still, I’m bound to say the odds were against the pony.  The whole of Delhi got into a state of excitement about it, natives and all, and every day I got letters warning me to take care, as there might be foul play.  The stable the pony was in was a big one, and I had a wall built across it, and put a man with a gun in the outer compartment.  I bought all his corn myself, in feeds at a time, going here, there, and everywhere for it, never to the same place for two days together—­I thought it was better to be sure than sorry, and there’s no trusting a nigger.

The day of the match every soul in the place turned out, such crowds that I could scarcely get the dog-cart through when I drove to the Cashmere gate.  I got down there, and was looking over the cart to see that everything was right, when a little half-caste keranie, a sort of low-class clerk, came up behind me and began talking to me in a mysterious kind of way, in that vile chi-chi accent one gets to hate so awfully.