The Monster-without-Manners would be let loose upon Society.  The Monster-without-Manners was kept in his place all through the night by a simple but admirable expedient which Maudie did not profess to understand.  As the sun peeped over the wall, Two-legs appeared at the top of the ladder, and peace departed from the earth till the sun went down again, when the Monster-without-Manners resumed his proper place upon the chain.  He did not know how to treat a lady, and was impervious to scratches that would have taught one less shaggy.  He was rough, and no gentleman.

Maudie herself had the manners of an aristocrat of fiction.  She walked through life, curling a contumelious lip, unshaken by the passions, aloof from the struggles, high above the emotions that stir and beset the creatures of the dust.  In Maudie’s estimation Billy Bluff was a bounder.  Certainly he bounded, and like most bounders he conceived of himself quite falsely as a funny fellow.

Brooding on her grievances, Maudie strolled thoughtfully across the yard, one eye always on her enemy, timing herself to be on the top of the wall just a second before the M.-w.-M. was free to bound.

“Shut up, you ass!” said the girl as she released the bob-tail.

He was away with a roar, scattering the fan-tails, as he launched on his way to exchange jibes with Maudie, languid, secure, and insolent on the top of the wall.

The girl went to the saddle-room, took down her saddle and bridle, and turned into the stable.

For once she was not the first.

Monkey Brand was before her, standing at the head of a now familiar chestnut pony, waiting, saddled, on the pillar-reins.

“Is Mr. Silver down?” the girl asked, surprised.

“Yes, Miss.  Came late last night.  Down for the week-end, I believe.  He’s goin’ for a stretch before he looks at the ’orses,” the little jockey informed her.  “They’re goin’ to gallop Make-Way-There this morning.”

“Are they?” said the girl sharply.

It was rarely anything took place in the stable without her knowledge.  And Make-Way-There, who was one of Mr. Silver’s horses, was to run at the Paris Meeting two weeks hence.

The girl, to hide her resentment, placed her hand on the pony’s neck, hard as marble beneath a skin that was soft to the touch as a mole’s.

“Ain’t he a little clinker?” said Monkey Brand in hushed voice.  “They say Mr. Silver refused L600 for him at Hurlingham.  And he took champion at the Poly Pony Show.”

The girl’s hand travelled down the pony’s neck with firm, strong, rhythmical stroke.

“Heart of Oak!” she purred affectionately.

Ragamuffin, the old roan pony in the next stall, began to move, restless and irritable.

“He’s jealous, is old Rags,” smiled Monkey.

The girl went to the roan.

“Now, then, old man,” she said.  “Old friends first.”