The Horse, as Comrade and Friend 



in Mexico, and of other important railway 

 work in India due to the War — in which all 

 personal expenditure has had to be reduced 

 to the minimum ; but the ponies have well 

 earned their keep, pasture in summer with a 

 little hay in winter, which is all they get. 

 Their affection and cheerful mentaUty have 

 been so really helpful to me. They are always 

 so pleased to see me and their welcome is so 

 genuine ! Ponies never carry glum faces and cast 

 no reproaches, ever ! When I am with my 

 ponies, I cannot help throwing off all the worries 

 and troubles of the City, and, for the time 

 being, forget them so utterly that the mental 

 refreshment is quite surprising ! 



For the last six years I have had a problem 

 before me, the solution of which has taxed to 

 the utmost all the brain power and inventive 

 faculties of which I am capable. It has been the 

 invention of life-saving apparatus for the air — 

 the automatically opening Aeroplane Parachute. 

 That I have succeeded, almost beyond my 

 anticipations, I can say with the utmost truth, 

 is directly due to the assistance given me, in 

 two ways, by my ponies. 



As to the first way, they have composed 

 my mind from all troubles and left me with a 

 perfectly clear brain to visuahse the very 

 complicated forces with which I had to deal, 

 and to think out the theoretical results of their 

 interaction. As a matter of fact, nearly all 



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