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Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot by Charles Heber Clark
page 37 of 304 (12%)

"Patrick said that, did he?"

"Yes; that was at the end of the second week. But as the horse didn't
rouse up, Patrick said it couldn't be the paregoric that kept him
asleep so long; and he came to me and asked me not to mention it, but
he had suspicions that Mr. Fogg had mesmerized him."

"I never heard of a horse being mesmerized, dearest."

"Neither did I, but Patrick said it was a common thing with the better
class of horses. And when he kept on sleeping, dear, I got frightened,
and Patrick consulted the horse-doctor, who came over with a galvanic
battery, which he said would wake the horse. They fixed the wires to
his leg and turned on the current. It did rouse him. He got up and
kicked fourteen boards out of the side of the stable and then jumped
the fence into Mr. Potts' yard, where he trod on a litter of young
pigs, kicked two cows to death and bit the tops off of eight apple
trees. Patrick said he tried to swallow Mrs. Potts' baby, but I didn't
see him do that. Patrick may have exaggerated. I don't know. It seems
hardly likely, does it, that the horse would actually try to eat a
child?"

"The man that sold him to me didn't mention that he was fond of
babies."

"But he got over the attack. The only effect was that the paregoric or
the electricity, or something, turned his hair all the wrong way, and
he looks the queerest you ever saw. Oh yes; it did seem to affect his
appetite, too. He appeared to be always hungry. He ate up the hay-rack
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