The Children's Book of London. G. E. Mitton

get it down again into his nose-bag when he wanted to eat his dinner, and they had to have a special sort of nose-bag made for him. Fact! And all along of an old bus-horse a-speaking to him friendly-like as they stood side by side one day. Silly things! they're running all day long, and never know how far they'll have to go, while I just have my one journey a day, and then I go back to my stable. You ought to see that stable. I live up two stories high, and I walk upstairs to bed every night. What are you laughing at? It's true. There are three stories at our place, and for staircases to reach the top ones there are long sloping boards, like those you've seen put for chickens to get into a hen-house, with little boards across to make steps, only, of course, ours are a bit bigger than the chickens'. Why, yes, don't laugh; I could not walk up a chicken-ladder, could I? In our stable we stand in long rows, a row on each side, with our heels together in the middle, and heads to the walls, and between the two rows of heels there's just enough room for a man to pass. Kick? Why, no; only the bad uns do that, and when they've done it once Tom (that's our stableman) he puts a rope across their heels to keep 'em in, and to show people they must take care. There's plenty to eat, and we don't have a bad time at all. There's eleven of us belong to one omnibus; that's two each time for five journeys, and one over. Well, in the mornings I go out with old Sally perhaps, and we trot up to the City and back; it's a matter of about eight miles each way. We don't have to go fast, but it's stop, stop, stop whenever a silly old woman wants to get on and get off, and it's a pull starting again, I can tell you. We know when the conductor rings the bell that means to start, and off we go without the driver telling us, and when the conductor rings again that's to stop; it's easy learnt. At the other end, the City end, we have perhaps a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, and then we come back. The whole thing doesn't take much over three hours, and we're done for that day; but our driver he has to go on again with another pair, and then another, and so five times there and back. It takes a long time that; but then, of course, he's only got to sit up on the bus, and he doesn't pull it, and every second day he is off for two journeys. Once in ten days we get a day off, a holiday, while the odd horse, number eleven, he takes the bus in the place of one of us. We have a doctor, too, to ourselves, and when we're ill we get medicine just as you do. Did you say that you had heard a bus-horse didn't live very long—that the work killed him? Well, maybe; it depends on the horse. There's a mare there fifteen years old, and quite good yet; but seven years does for most of us. What's that you're giving me? Sugar, did you say? I don't know about that—I'd rather not; but if you had an apple now, or a bit of bread, I'll eat it and welcome.'

      You see, he was a common horse, this—not a gentleman, but a good-tempered, nice fellow, that wouldn't give his driver much trouble. But they're not all like that. Listen now to a cab-horse.

      'Did you say you'd been talking to a bus-horse? Nasty low creatures, not fit to talk to! Now I can tell you all you want to know. Yes, I'm only a cab-horse now, it's true, but once I was in a gentleman's carriage—one of a pair, with a coachman and footman on the box, and my lady herself used to pat my nose and give me sugar. They were grand times then—that is, they seem grand when I think of them now—very little to do, and we were scrubbed and polished until our coats were like satin. In the afternoon we danced round the Park. Yes, I say danced, because there was a horrid thing called a bearing-rein that hurt us so much that we had to dance and throw out our legs, and people said it was splendid. It made me feel so angry that I didn't know what to do. But then I had a bad temper from the beginning, and it's my temper that has done for me. One day I wheeled round and leaped over the traces, and kicked the coachman hard. We were standing in the mews, and I dashed out and ran away, and the other horse fell down, and the carriage was smashed. Well, then I was sold, and—— But I'm not going to tell you about that. Yes, I know it's my own fault, and I know I shouldn't have been a cab-horse if I'd behaved; but I was wicked, and I used to bite, and now I've been whipped and beaten until I daren't do anything. Yes, even now I kick, and I hate my life and I hate my driver. He gives me sugar sometimes, too; but that's just because he doesn't want me to run away and dash him off his box, but I shall some day. I shall smash him up against a lamp-post just because I hate everyone. Oh, it's not a fine life, I can tell you. It's all very well when I stand here waiting; but perhaps just when I've got my nose into my bag and begun to eat I hear a sharp whistle twice, and that means someone wants a hansom, and my master whisks away my bag, jumps on to his box, and gives me a cut that makes me furious, and we go galloping round the streets to see where the whistle comes from. And when we find the right house, where someone is waiting, perhaps a man jumps in, and says: "To the station as fast as you can, and half a crown if you do it in a quarter of an hour." Well, of course, it's my master who gets the money, but it's I that have to earn it. So we tear off full speed, and other things get in the way, and I have to pull up suddenly, and the horrid curb-bit cuts my mouth till I could rear with the pain. Then off again, and at last, all hot and angry, we dash up to the station, and the man inside leaps out and throws up the money and runs off. Then my master strokes me down, and says: "Jenny, old girl, I'm sorry to fluster you so, but we must make a bit for the bairns at home, eh, old girl?" And he pats me, and I'd bite his hand if I could. As if I cared about his bairns! And so it goes on all day long, and at night I'm in a nasty stuffy stable with other horses coming and going, until it makes me wild. I'll be glad when it's all over, I can tell you; but I have heard it said that there are worse things than even my life.'

      That horse, you see, was not good-tempered, and so even the kind cabman could not make her happy.

      There are still many horses in London drawing carts of all kinds and vans, and even private carriages, but every year they become fewer.