white pony. "By golly, I guess you think you own this town!" an
embittered labourer complained, one day, as Georgie rode the pony
straight through a pile of sand the man was sieving. "I will when I
grow up," the undisturbed child replied. "I guess my grandpa owns it
now, you bet!" And the baffled workman, having no means to controvert
what seemed a mere exaggeration of the facts could only mutter "Oh,
pull down your vest!"

"Don't haf to! Doctor says it ain't healthy!" the boy returned
promptly. "But I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll pull down my vest if
you'll wipe off your chin!"

This was stock and stencil: the accustomed argot of street badinage of
the period; and in such matters Georgie was an expert. He had no vest
to pull down; the incongruous fact was that a fringed sash girdled the
juncture of his velvet blouse and breeches, for the Fauntleroy period
had set in, and Georgie's mother had so poor an eye for appropriate
things, where Georgie was concerned, that she dressed him according to
the doctrine of that school in boy decoration. Not only did he wear a
silk sash, and silk stockings, and a broad lace collar, with his
little black velvet suit: he had long brown curls, and often came home
with burrs in them.

Except upon the surface (which was not his own work, but his mother's)
Georgie bore no vivid resemblance to the fabulous little Cedric. The
storied boy's famous "Lean on me, grandfather," would have been
difficult to imagine upon the lips of Georgie. A month after his
ninth birthday anniversary, when the Major gave him his pony, he had
already become acquainted with the toughest boys in various distant
parts of the town, and had convinced them that the toughness of a rich