110 Heason or Instinct. 



leader turns round and wants to join in, just as a fidgety 

 country parson at a watering place, who is out for a holiday 

 is itching to preach instead of listening to the sermon. And 

 again, with the cab horses, when a hansom driver has driven 

 you smartly up to the station, and you have paid him [JST.B. — 

 As a makeweight to all your sins, live so as to be ready to face 

 all the cabmen at the end of the world, for most of them 

 are good fellows], it costs you nothing to pat the horse, and 

 it pleases him ; and ten to one the cabman instantly tells you 

 what a good little horse he is, and how he or she once ran third 

 or fourth in some celebrated race, which is often the case. 

 Good nurses are invaluable if they are clever at " baby 

 talk," and horse talk is a great comfort to a horse. There 

 is a man whom I used to notice at the South-Western 

 stables — alas ! he is gone, and I never gave him a shilling 

 or '^ stood him a pint ; " he was great at horse talk. One 

 morning a horse which he was grooming slipped his halter 

 and ran up the yard. " Ah ! very well, Mr. Billy, you are 

 a gentleman to-day, are you ? You'll want your dinner 

 presently, and I shall go for my holiday." The horse fairly 

 laughed at the man, who fetched another horse out and 

 began cleaning him, and, when he had finished, the truant 

 came back, and fairly tried to put his head into his halter 

 again. So Billy promised, in fact, to behave better, and was 

 cleaned, and I hope had his dinner. This is reason, far beyond 

 instinct. Circus horses I don't much believe in, any more than 

 in performing lions and tigers, who very often end by biting 

 someone's head off, or walking about with a keeper's arm ; 

 but I make a special reservation in favour of the clown's 

 donkey, who nods his head at the mention of the names of 

 great public men, and on Quaker Bright being named kicks 

 the clown in the wind ; but this I saw done in a strong Tory 

 town in the good old diys of England when the existence of 

 a Deity was a necessary article of faith amongst English 



