probably attributed our ready answers to the superiority of his
teaching, not realizing that our minds were concentrated upon the
subject of spectacles.

Of course, a horse balks now and then, and so does a boy. I did a
bit of balking myself as a boy, and I am not quite certain that I
have even yet become immune. Doctor James Wallace (whose edition of
"Anabasis" some of us have read, halting and stumbling along through
the parasangs) with three companions went out to Marathon one day
from Athens. The distance, as I recall it, is about twenty-two
miles, and they left early in the morning, so as to return the same
day. Their conveyance was an open wagon with two horses attached.
When they had gone a mile or two out of town one of the horses balked
and refused to proceed. Then and there each member of the party drew
upon his past experiences, seeking a panacea for the equine
delinquency. One suggested the plan of building a fire under the
recalcitrant horse, while another suggested pouring sand into his
ears. Doctor Wallace discouraged these remedies as being cruel and
finally told the others to take their places in the wagon and he
would try the merits of a plan he had in mind. Accordingly, when
they were seated, he clambered over the dash, walked along the
wagon-pole, and suddenly plumped himself down upon the horse's back.
Then away they went, John Gilpin like, Doctor Wallace's coat-tails
and hair streaming out behind.

There was no more balking in the course of the trip, and no one
(save, possibly, the horse) had any twinges of conscience to keep him
awake that night. The incident is brimful of pedagogy in that it
shows that, in order to cure a horse of an attack of balking, you
have but to distract his mind from his balking and get him to