Surely the world is looking at me and admiring the way I rock with the float, the cool way I have with the reins and the whip. I wish I had a pipe like Mr. Hannon and a tweed cap. I wish I could be a real coal man with black skin like Mr. Hannon and Uncle Pa Keating so that people would say, There goes Frankie McCourt that delivers all the coal in Limerick and drinks his pint in South’s pub. I’d never wash my face.I’d be black every day of the year even Christmas when you’re sup- posed to give yourself a good wash for the coming of the Infant Jesus. I know He wouldn’t mind because I saw the Three Wise Men in the Christmas  crib  at  the  Redemptorist  church  and  one  of  them  was blacker than Uncle Pa Keating, the blackest man in Limerick, and if a Wise Man is black it means that everywhere you go in the world some- one is delivering coal. The horse lifts his tail and great lumps of steaming yellow shit drop from his behind. I start to pull on the reins so that he can stop and have a bit of comfort for himself but Mr. Hannon says, No, Frankie, let him trot.They always shit on the trot.That’s one of the blessings horses have, they shit on the trot, and they’re not dirty and stinking like the human race, not at all, Frankie.The worst thing in the world is to go into a lavatory after a man that had a feed of pig’s feet and a night of pints. The  stink  from  that  could  twist  the  nostrils  of  a  strong  man. Horses are different.All they have is oats and hay and what they drop is clean and natural. I work with Mr. Hannon after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the half day on Saturday morning and that means three shillings for my mother though she worries all the time over my eyes.The minute I get home she washes them and makes me rest them for half an hour. Mr. Hannon says he’ll wait near Leamy’s School for me on Thurs- days after his deliveries on Barrington Street.Now the boys will see me. Now they’ll know I’m a workingman and more than a scabby-eyed blubber gob dancing Jap. Mr. Hannon says, Up you get, and I climb up on the float like any workingman. I look at the boys gawking at me. Gawking. I tell Mr. Hannon if he wants to smoke his pipe in comfort I’ll take the reins and when he hands them over I’m sure I hear the boys gasping. I tell the horse, G’up ower that, like Mr. Hannon.We trot away and I know dozens of Leamy’s boys are committing the deadly sin of envy.  I  tell  the  horse  again,  G’up  ower  that,  to  make  sure  everyone heard, to make sure they know I’m driving that float and no one else, to make sure they’ll never forget it was me they saw on that float with 263