The man dismounted and approached Mr. Knox, hat in hand, towing after him a gaunt and ancient black mare with a big knee.

‘Well, Barrett,’ began Flurry, surveying the mare with his hands in his pockets, ‘I’m not giving the hounds meat this month, or only very little.’

‘Ah, Master Flurry,’ answered Barrett, ‘it’s you that’s pleasant! Is it give the like o’ this one for the dogs to ate! She’s a vallyble strong young mare, no more than shixteen years of age, and ye’d sooner be lookin’ at her goin’ under a side-car than eatin’ your dinner.’

‘There isn’t as much meat on her as ’d fatten a jackdaw,’ said Flurry, clinking the silver in his pockets as he searched for a matchbox. ‘What are you asking for her?’

The old man drew cautiously up to him.

‘Master Flurry,’ he said solemnly, ‘I’ll sell her to your honour for five pounds, and she’ll be worth ten after you give her a month’s grass.’

Flurry lit his cigarette; then he said imperturbably, ‘I’ll give you seven shillings for her.’

Old Barrett put on his hat in silence, and in silence buttoned his coat and took hold of the stirrup leather. Flurry remained immovable.

‘Master Flurry,’ said old Barrett suddenly, with tears in his voice, ‘you must make it eight, sir!’

‘Michael!’ called out Flurry with apparent irrelevance, ‘run up to your father’s and ask him would he lend me a loan of his side-car.’

Half an hour later we were, improbable as it may seem, on our way to Lisheen races. We were seated upon an outside-car of immemorial age, whose joints seemed to open and close again as it swung in and out of the ruts, whose tattered cushions stank of rats and mildew, whose wheels staggered and rocked like the legs of a drunken man. Between the shafts jogged the latest addition to the kennel larder, the eight-shilling mare. Flurry sat on one side, and kept her going at a rate of not less than four miles an hour; Leigh Kelway and I held on to the other.

‘She’ll get us as far as Lynch’s anyway,’ said Flurry, abandoning his first contention that she could do the whole distance, as he pulled her on to her legs after her fifteenth stumble, ‘and he’ll lend us some sort of a horse, if it was only a mule.’

‘Do you notice that these cushions are very damp?’ said Leigh Kelway to me, in a hollow undertone.

‘Small blame to them if they are!’ replied Flurry. ‘I’ve no doubt but they were out under the rain all day yesterday at Mrs. Hurly’s funeral.’

Leigh Kelway made no reply, but he took his notebook out of his pocket and sat on it.

We arrived at Lynch’s at a little past three, and were there confronted by the next disappointment of this disastrous day. The door of Lynch’s farmhouse was locked, and nothing replied to our knocking except a puppy, who barked hysterically from within.

‘All gone to the races,’ said Flurry philosophically, picking his way round the manure heap. ‘No matter, here’s the filly in the shed here. I know he’s had her under a car.’

An agitating ten minutes ensued, during which Leigh Kelway and I got the eight-shilling mare out of the shafts and the harness, and Flurry, with our inefficient help, crammed the young mare into them. As Flurry had stated that she had been driven before, I was bound to believe him, but the difficulty of