102 WHIP AND SPUR. 



horse-racing played a prominent part. Both Max 

 and Guy were conspicuous by their successes until, 

 long before the close of our leisurely career, but 

 only after they had hung my walls with spurs 

 and whips and other trophies of their successful 

 competition with all comers, both were ruled out 

 by the impossible odds they were obliged to give. 

 The actual military service required was only 

 enough to convince me that Max was a beast of 

 endless bottom and endurance, and that, accidents 

 apart, he would need no help in any work he 

 might be called on to perform. For the rest of 

 the war, with much duty of untold severity, I 

 habitually rode no other horse for light work or 

 for hard, for long rides or for short ones, on the 

 march or on parade ; and with all my sentiment 

 for his charming predecessors, I had to confess 

 that his equal as a campaigner had never come 

 under my leg. He would walk like a cart-horse 

 at the head of a marching column, would step 

 like a lord in passing in review, would prance 

 down the main street of a town as though vain 

 of all applause, would leap any fence or ditch 



