everywhere, and Christmas all of a heap beyond. With imprecations on all
"pony dots" in my mind, I hastened to inspect the mangled remains. They
groaned, struggled to their feet, shook themselves and went placidly
home as soon as we had unhitched the chains. One scratch on the most
rotund part of the body was the only record of the "brief, eventful
history," and Christmas smiled in Tom's face as he munched a
soul-soothing banana.




CHAPTER X



THE SPORT OF FATE


"A populous solitude of bees and birds
And fairy-formed and many-coloured things."

BYRON.

Was ever a more glorious season for butterflies, and, alas! be it said,
for sand and fruit and other flies of humble bearing but questionable
character?

Light-hearted, purely ornamental insects, sober and industrious, ugly,
mischievous, destructive, all have revelled--and the butterfly brings the
art of inconsequent revelling to the acme of perfection--in the