“Guts,” he said.

The ostler led the old horse with dripping muzzle away from the water-trough.  The expression on his face seemed to suggest that the other was a vulgar fellow.

“Did he talk?” asked Albert.

“Talk!” said Cherry ironically.  “To me?  Likely, ain’t it?  He talked all right.  Only he never let on.”

Albert had picked up his towel, and was scrubbing away at his chin.

“Plucky little feller,” he said.  “You’d never know.”

“He takes his gruel all right,” admitted the other surlily, unharnessing.

“Yes, we’ve learned him his lesson since he’s been at Putnam’s,” reflected Albert.

“’Ow long’s he been training here then?” asked Cherry grudgingly, as he coiled the traces.

“Five year I’ve had him now,” answered Albert.  “He come to me the spring afore Four-Pound-the-Second was foaled.”

Cherry led the old horse into the stable and put him into an empty stall.

“——­ shame I call it,” he said.  “A nice feller like that.”

Albert watched him with folded arms.

“I would, too,” he said, “only it’s Sunday, and Mar might hear.”

Cherry smirked.

“Why ain’t you at Bible Class then?” he asked grimly.

The Bible Class at Putnam’s was a standing joke along the South Downs from Arunvale to Beachy Head.

Albert swaggered.

“I’m not takin’ it this morning,” he said.  “I’m givin ’em a serees of addresses on the ‘Igher Life when the jumpin’ season’s over.”

The little ostler looked at his watch.

“You’d better step it,” he said, “you and your Hired Life.  It’s past eleben and the bells have stopped.  If you ain’t there before her, you’ll get the stick, you will.”

Albert moved slowly up the gangway behind the loose-boxes, unheeding the other’s taunts.

“I reck’n they’ve took a couple o’ million off of him since Christmas,” he said, returning to the subject which he could not leave.  “And I got to get it back for him.”

“Indeed?” said Cherry ironically. “‘Ow?  Tellin’ lies and gettin’ paid for ’em?”

Albert opened the door of a loose-box and pointed dramatically.

Cherry stared at the brown horse within.

Albert whistled softly and the horse turned his long neck and gazed at them with wise and quizzical eye.  “Ain’t he a big un?” cried Cherry, the note of irony dropping from his voice in spite of himself.

Billy Bluff, who had been curled under the manger, came across the loose-box and sniffed the little ostler friendly.

“’Ullo, Billy!” said the old man.  “Do you sleep in here?”

“Won’t sleep nowhere else,” answered Albert.  “And what’s more, Four Pound won’t sleep unless his pal’s with him.  They’ve always had this loose-box atween ’em from the start.  Miss Boy used to sleep in here, too, when he was a foal.”  The youth dropped his swank, and became confidential and keen.  “Wonderful close friends, them two, you wouldn’t believe.  Four Pound had a cracked heel last autumn, and I used to bandage him at nights.  He didn’t like the bandages, and every night after I’d rugged him up and left him, Billy’d take and unwind the lot.  Didn’t you, Billy?”