genius is on all our public men,” Mr. Smead continued. “They all wear the scarlet blossom of capacity on their noses. The scarlet blossom an' the silver tongue go hand in hand, as it were.”      

       Mr. Daniel Webster Smead was, indeed, a singular man. He had little learning, but was a keen observer. Ever since his boyhood he had browsed in good books, notably those of Artemus Ward and Charles Dickens. The Websterian thunder did not appeal to him, but he had cultivated certain of the weaknesses which he had vividly described. He had a massive indolence and a great fondness for horses. He was drunk with hope all the time, and now and then sought the stimulation of beer. Hopes and hops were his worst enemies. When he talked people were wont to laugh, but every one said that Smead did not amount to anything. However, if all the other leading lights of the village had conferred their brains jointly on one man, he would not have been more than knee-high to the mental stature of Smead. He was a man of wide talent—a kind of human what-not. He could do many things well, but accomplished little.     

       In fact, Mr. Smead was an ass, and he knew enough to know that he was an ass, which of itself distinguished him above all the citizens of Griggsby. He was drifting along in the bondage of custom; and he knew it, and laughed at his own folly.     

       As we rose from the table he said, in a little aside to me: “In the morning I'll show you a hoss an' a fool, an' both standard-bred an' in the two-thirty list.”      

       I spent the evening in my own room with a book, and when I came down in the morning I saw Mr. Smead entering the gate in a shining red road cart behind a horse blanketed to his nose, and in knee and ankle boots. I hurried to the stable, where Mr. Smead stood proudly, with a short whip in his hand, while the boys were removing the harness and boots from a big, steaming stallion.     

       “There is Montravers—mark of two twenty-nine an' a half,” said he, glibly. “By Bald Eagle out of Clara Belle, she by George Wilkes, he by Hambletonian X.; his dam was Queen Bess by Wanderer, out of Crazy Jane, she by Meteor. I expect him to transport me to the goal of affluence.”      

  

  

       Two of the boys 

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