tail trailing like a plume of steam from a locomotive. Again he looked,
baulked, and with a contemptuous fling of heels raced up the paddock.
Retreating to him was not running away, nor was staying wisdom when
danger overbalanced hope. Again he made a gallant effort to vanquish
his fear, but at the critical moment Jonah, under the stimulus of
George's heels, charged, and Christmas, with a squeal of terror,
thundered blindly among the trees. Now was he convinced of the
grisliness of the visitation. That downtrodden, servile Jonah, from whom
he exacted prompt obedience to every passing whim, should be thus
translated and so puffed up with audacity as to chase him was proof of
the presence of incredible mischief from which the most valorous might
with discretion retire; and without pause he galloped--free and wild as
the blast of a tempest--round the paddock time and again, keeping the
greatest possible space between himself and the pursuing apparition.

George kept up the fun until Christmas, beginning to reflect, swerved
from fear to the attitude of anger, and to paw the ground and to sniff
defiantly the air. Trotting boldly up towards Jonah, he neighed
imperatively, but George waved off his assurance with his hat, and
Christmas collapsing with fright, made furious haste for non-existing
solitude. Once more he ventured, with bolder, more menacing front. He
reared, pranced, kicked, savaged the air--not an item of all his pentup
wickedness being undemonstrated. Then George dismounted suddenly, and
calling in soothing tones, Christmas realised that the appalling
creature was but a temporary compound of his playmate and the abject
Jonah. Cautiously advancing in a series of contours dislocated with
staccato stops and starts and frothy exclamations, he seemed to recognise
the whole episode as a practical joke, of which he had been the victim,
and to promise retaliation upon Jonah, for no sooner was that meek animal
at liberty than he became the sport and jeer.