quick!" Christmas is not petulant, though he is occasionally indignant
on a large and complicated scale.

Early in his career Christmas showed and materialised the quality of
masterfulness, his chief trait. He bullied Jonah, now banished to "an
odd angle of the Isle," courted encounters with a huge nondescript dog
belonging to the blacks which once disrespectfully snapped at his heels
and for ever after took a distorted view of things on account of a
lop-sided jaw, and was wont to scatter the goats with a wild gallop
through the flock. How meek and gentle his demeanour when he whinnies
over the gate for bananas, or screws his head beneath the kitchen shutter
and shuts his eyes and opens his lips, tempting his mistress to treat him
to unknown dainties! And for all his masterful spirit did he not once
fly from Jonah? During one of Tom's many absences ex-trooper George was
chief assistant in the administration of the affairs of the Island,
between whom and Christmas cordial companionship was manifested; for
George, in his understanding of horses, knew how to flatter and gratify
Christmas with small attentions.

More at home in the saddle than on foot, having improvised bit and
bridle, he rode off on Jonah into the bush, unobserved of Christmas, who
had never beheld one of his species so hampered by a human being. While
George was away it occurred to one of us to suggest that a high-mettled,
never-ridden steed might be flustered when confronted with novel and
incomprehensible circumstances. When George cantered home, Christmas
gazed, horror-struck, for a moment, bounded into the air, snorted, and
with flowing mane and flying tail fled to the most secluded corner of
the paddock with strides that seemed to gulp the ground. In a few
minutes he returned at the trot, inquisitive, high-stepping, tossing
his head, flinging little clods of earth far behind, snorting, and