Page:Wren--The young stagers.djvu/63

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BOBBALL
45

"Pukkaro 'im," quoth he, "an' lead 'im upar an' niche so as 'e don' get tundah. Naow!—don' baitho 'ere, jao upar an' niche, I tell yer, yer silly poggle"

"Don't you love horses, Bobball?" asked Boodle, as the three seated themselves on the sand, "I do."

"I loved one 'oss, Missy," replied Bobball. "I worshipped the graound as it trod on.

"It trod on me toe, once," he added reminiscently.

"Was it your horthe, Bobball?" asked the Vice.

"It were not, me lord," was the reply. "Not iggsackly mine. It were a race-'oss, an' it belonged to my Capting. . . . Ah! 'Ow I loved that 'oss! 'E won me a fi'-pun-note 'e did, and I 'ungered not, nor thirsted I, for a munf. . . . I didn't thirst any'ow. . . ."

"Tell us all about it," commanded the President, scenting a story.

Bobball removed the cutty clay from the midst of the thicket of his vast red moustache, screwed up his tiny grey eyes till they almost