their unreality. A coat of real chestnut hair, glossy, glorious! From
end to end of the Parthenon frieze not one of the horses had that.
>From end to end of the toy-shop that exhibited him not one of the
horses was thus graced. Their flanks were mere wood, painted white,
with arbitrary blotches of grey here and there. Miserable creatures!
It was difficult to believe that they had souls. No wonder they were
cheap, and `went off,' as the shopman said, so quickly, whilst he
stayed grandly on, cynosure of eyes that dared not hope for him. Into
bondage they went off, those others, and would be worked to death,
doubtless, by brutal little boys.

When, one fine day, a lady was actually not shocked by the price
demanded for him, his pride was hurt. And when, that evening, he was
packed in brown paper and hoisted to the roof of a four-wheeler, he
faced the future fiercely. Who was this lady that her child should
dare bestride him? With a biblical `ha, ha,' he vowed that the child
should not stay long in saddle: he must be thrown--badly--even though
it was his seventh birthday. But this wicked intention vanished while
the child danced around him in joy and wonder. Never yet had so many
compliments been showered on him. Here, surely, was more the manner of
a slave than of a master. And how lightly the child rode him, with
never a tug or a kick! And oh, how splendid it was to be flying thus
through the air! Horses were made to be ridden; and he had never
before savoured the true joy of life, for he had never known his own
strength and fleetness. Forward! Backward! Faster, faster! To floor!
To ceiling! Regiments of leaden soldiers watched his wild career.
Noah's quiet sedentary beasts gaped up at him in wonderment--as tiny
to him as the gaping cows in the fields are to you when you pass by in
an express train. This was life indeed! He remembered Katafalto--
remembered Eclipse and the rest nowhere. Aye, thought he, and even