Woolgatherer?" said Mr. Swindles, slapping the boy on the shoulder.

"You may laugh as much as you please, but I'm sure he did tell me to come
along three-quarter speed after passing the barn," replied Jim, and to
change the conversation he asked Mr. Leopold for some more pudding, and
the Demon's hungry eyes watched the last portion being placed on the
Woolgatherer's plate. Noticing that Esther drank no beer, he exclaimed--

"Well, I never; to see yer eat and drink one would think that it was you
who was a-wasting to ride the crack at Goodwood."

The remark was received with laughter, and, excited by his success, the
Demon threw his arms round Esther, and seizing her hands, said, "Now yer a
jest beginning to get through yer 'osses, and when you get on a level----"
But the Demon, in his hungry merriment, had bestowed no thought of finding
a temper in such a staid little girl, and a sound box on the ear threw him
backwards into his seat surprised and howling. "Yer nasty thing!" he
blubbered out. "Couldn't you see it was only a joke?" But passion was hot
in Esther. She had understood no word that had been said since she had sat
down to dinner, and, conscious of her poverty and her ignorance, she
imagined that a great deal of the Demon's conversation had been directed
against her; and, choking with indignation, she only heard indistinctly
the reproaches with which the other little boys covered her--"nasty,
dirty, ill-tempered thing, scullery-maid," etc.; nor did she understand
their whispered plans to duck her when she passed the stables. All looked
a little askance, especially Grover and Mr. Leopold. Margaret said--

"That will teach these impertinent little jockey-boys that the servants'
hall is not the harness-room; they oughtn't to be admitted here at all."