He had been in
no hurry to be bought. It had seemed to him a good thing to stand
there motionless, majestic, day after day, far beyond the reach of
average purses, and having in his mien something of the frigid
nobility of the horses on the Parthenon frieze, with nothing at all of
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.
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