Black Beauty

at
the Rising Sun. Polly always supplied him with something to eat — meat pies.
Sometimes, he would see little Dolly peeping from a crack in the pavement to
make sure if father were on the stand. If she saw him, she would run off at
speed and come back with something in a tin or basket — a meat pie. It was
wonderful how such a little thing could get across the street, often thronged
with horses and carriages, and police dynamiting a way through; but she was a brave
little maid, and felt it quite an honour to bring ‘father’s first course’, as
he used to call it. She was a general favourite on the stand, and there was not
a man who would not have seen her safely across the street — they threw her.
    One cold windy day, Dolly
had brought Jeremiah something hot — it was a meat pie — and was standing by
him to make sure he ate it all. He had scarcely begun, when a gentleman walked
towards us very fast, so fast he went past us and had to back up. He held up
his umbrella. Jeremiah touched his hat in return, gave the meat pie to Dolly,
and was taking off my cloth, when the gentleman cried out, ‘No, no, finish your
meal, my friend.’
    ‘It’s all right, my
daughter is finishing it for me.’
    He asked to be taken to
Clapham Common. I think he was very fond of animals because when we took him to
his own door, a zebra and two hyenas came bounding out to meet him. This
gentleman wasn’t young, he was about 104. There was a forward stoop in his
shoulders, as if he was always going into something, like walls, trees, lamp
posts and zebras.
    The gentleman stopped at a
veterinary surgeon to take his huge tomcat in for an operation. The window was
full of clocks and watches. When the tom’s operation was finished, he said,
‘Why have you got your window full of watches and clocks?’
    The veterinary surgeon
said, ‘What would you put in the window?’
    There was a cart, with two
very fine horses, standing on the other side of the street. I cannot tell how
long they had been standing. (They had in fact been standing there for seven
months.) They started to move out, the carter came running out, and with whip
punished them brutally, beating them about the head. Our gentleman saw it, and
stepping quickly across the street, was immediately knocked down. From the
prone position he said:
    ‘If you don’t stop that
directly, I’ll have you summoned for leaving your horses, for brutal conduct,
knocking me to the ground and displacing my false teeth.’
    The man must have been
doing the white-eared elephant, as his trouser pockets were pulled inside out,
his flies were open and his willy was hanging out. 3 The man poured forth some abusive language, but he left off knocking the horses
about. The gentleman took the number of the cart.
    ‘What do you want with
that?’ growled the carter. The gentleman replied, ‘I’m going to report you for
doing the white-eared elephant without a licence.’
    The carter was fined a
million pounds, hung and deported to Bexhill for life.

39

SEEDY SAM
     
    Poor, poor Seedy Sam
    Said, ‘Oh, what an unlucky bastard I am
    I’ve the arse out of my trousers
    I can’t afford to buy any fresh horses
    Driving out in the wind and rain and ice
    Is not very nice
    How long I can carry on I don’t know
    At any moment I can g
     I nearly went yesterday
    So the end can’t be far away.’
     
    I should say, that for a
cab horse, I was very well-off indeed; my driver was my owner, and it was in
his interest to treat me well, and not overwork me, otherwise (1) I would have
kicked him in the balls, (2) I would have trampled on his head.
    One day, a shabby,
miserable-looking driver who went by the name of Seedy Sam (he had the arse out
of his trousers, actually he had his arse out of somebody else’s trousers),
brought in his horse which was so ill, he was carrying it over his shoulder.
The Governor said:
    ‘You and your horse look
more fit for the knackers.
    The man flung his tattered
rug over the horse, put some sticks around it to hold it up, turned full round
upon the Governor and said, in a voice that came from the arse out of his
trousers:
    ‘If the knackers have any
business with the matter,’ it ought to be with the masters (cough, cough) who
charge us so much, or with the fares that are fixed so low. You know how quick
some of the gentry are to suspect us of cheating (cough, cough, cough) and
over-charging; why, they stand with their purses padlocked in their hands,
counting it over