with his nose, the matter of a foot or two.  If he didn’t polish up the coulter, and both mould boards of his face, its a pity.  Now, says I, you had better lay where you be and let me go, for I am proper tired; I blow like a horse that’s got the heaves; and besides, says I, I guess you had better wash your face, for I am most a feared you hurt yourself.  That ryled him properly; I meant that it should; so he ups and at me awful spiteful like a bull; then I lets him have it, right, left, right, jist three corkers, beginning with the right hand, shifting to the left, and then with the right hand agin.  This way I did it, said the Clockmaker, (and he showed me the manner in which it was done) its a beautiful way of hitting, and always does the business—­a blow for each eye and one for the mouth.  It sounds like ten pounds ten on a blacksmith’s anvil; I bunged up both eyes for him, and put in the dead lights in two tu’s, and drew three of his teeth, quicker a plaguy sight than the Truro doctor could, to save his soul alive.  Now, says I, my friend, when you recover your eye-sight I guess you’ll see your mistake—­I warnt born in the woods to be scared by an owl.  The next time you feel in a most particular elegant good humour, come to me and I’ll play you the second part of that identical same tune, that’s a fact.  With that, I whistled for old Clay, and back he comes, and I mounted and off, jist as the crowd came up.  The folks looked staggered, and wondered a little grain how it was done so cleverly in short metre.  If I did’nt quilt him in no time, you may depend; I went right slap into him, like a flash of lightning into a gooseberry bush.  He found his suit ready made and fitted afore he thought he was half measured.  Thinks I, friend Bradley, I hope you know yourself now, for I vow no livin soul would; your swallowed your soup without singin out scaldins, and your near about a pint and a half nearer cryin than larfin.

Yes, as I was sayin, this “old Clay” is a real knowin one, he’s as spry as a colt jet, clear grit, ginger to the back bone; I cant help a thinkin sometimes the breed must have come from old Kentuck, half horse, half alligator, with a cross of the airth-quake.

I hope I may be tetotally ruinated, if I’d take eight hundred dollars for him.  Go ahead, you old clinker built villain, said he, and show the gentleman how wonderful handSUM you can travel.  Give him the real Connecticut quick step.  That’s it—­that’s the way to carry the President’s message to Congress, from Washington to New York, in no time—­that’s the go to carry a gall from Boston to Rhode Island, and trice her up to a Justice to be married, afore her father’s out of bed of a summer’s mornin.  Aint he a beauty? a real doll? none of your Cumberland critters, that the more you quilt them, the more they wont go; but a proper one, that will go free gratis for nothin, all out of his own head voluntERRILY.  Yes, a horse like “Old Clay,” is worth the whole seed, breed and generation, of them Amherst beasts put together.  He’s a horse, every inch of him, stock, lock, and barrel, is old Clay.