Conversation was impossible for a space, while the blacksmith hammered the shoe into place. Wakefield sniffed the delicious odor of burnt hoof that hung almost visibly on the air.
Chalk put down the large foot he had been nursing, and remarked:—
"There was a man wrote a piece of poetry about a blacksmith once. 'Under a spreading chestnut tree,' it began. Ever read it? He must have wrote it to be read, eh?"
"Oh, I know that piece. It's awful bunk. And besides, he wasn't your kind of blacksmith. He didn't get drunk and give his wife a black eye and knock his kids around—"
"Look here!" interrupted Chalk with great heat. "Cut out that insultin' kind of talk or I'll shy a hammer at you."
Wakefield backed away, but said, judicially, "There you go. Just proving what I said. You're not the kind of blacksmith to write comp. or even poetry about. You're not beautiful. Mr. Fennel says we should write of beautiful things."
"Well, I know I ain't beautiful," agreed Chalk, reluctantly. "But I ain't as bad as all that."
"All what?" Wakefield successfully assumed Mr. Fennel's air of schoolmasterish probing.
"That I can't be writ about."
"Well, then, Chalk, suppose I was to write down everything I know about you and hand it to Mr. Fennel for comp. Would you be pleased?"
"I say I'll be pleased to fire a hammer at you if you don't clear out!" shouted Chalk, backing the heavy mare toward the door.
Wakefield moved agilely aside as the great dappled flank approached, then he set off down the road—which
