30 IN THE BIDING-SCHOOL. 



All that is not your business. Your sole 

 concern is to keep your body in position, and 

 your mind fixed on making your horse obey 

 you, doing nothing of his own will. Stop him 

 now and then by leaning back, and drawing on 

 the reins, not with your body, but with your 

 hands. Then lean forward and go on, but if 

 he should remain planted as fast as the Great 

 Pyramid, if when started he should go like a 

 snail, if he should refuse to pay any attention 

 to the little taps of your left heel and the 

 touches of your whip, nay, if he should lie down 

 and pretend to die, like a trick horse in a circus, 

 don't cluck. No good riding master will teach 

 a pupil to cluck or will permit the practice to 

 pass unreproved, and riding-school horses do 

 not understand it, and are quite as likely to 

 start at the cluck of a rider on the other side 

 of the ring as they are when a similar noise is 

 made by the person on their own backs. 



But now, just as you have shortened your reins 

 for the fortieth time or so, your master rides up 

 beside you. You told him of your little three- 

 lesson plan, and, being wise in his generation, he 

 smilingly assented to it. " Shall we trot?" he 



