THE MARQUIS 



WHEN the Marquis was sixteen, 

 they "bhstered" him, "fired" 

 him, and then turned him out. 

 He was dead lame in his off fore- 

 leg; he would never gallop again, they said, but 

 that is not the end of the Marquis's life-story, 

 on the contrary, the crowning triumph of the 

 Marquis's existence was yet to come. 



FuUerton, whose horse he was, did not remem- 

 ber exactly why he had called him the Marquis, 

 he said, unless it was because as a colt his arrogant 

 pride and his courage suggested that of the old 

 French aristocrats when they walked, smiling, to 

 the guillotine. Fullerton had said at the time that 

 if the Marquis ever broke his leg and had to be shot 

 he would limp out into the paddock, with his head 

 up, his nostrils dilated in that slightly contemp- 

 tuous air he always wore (for the Marquis was 

 descended from "Torchlights" on the male side), 

 and would take his medicine like a gentleman and 

 a sportsman. On his mother's side, there was 

 good standard-bred stock, bourgeois perhaps, but 

 honest straight through — and if the Marquis got 

 11 



