228 THE HORSE OF MR. VON OSTEN 



at pecuniary speculation, and an advertisement of June, 

 1902, in the " Militarwochenblatt ", in which Hans was 

 offered for sale, seemed to confirm the conjecture. Mr. 

 von Osten says that this occurred at a time when he him- 

 self was sick and had become tired of the job. And why 

 should he not be willing to sell even a thinking horse, 

 since he had become convinced that any other could be 

 instructed in the same way? Besides, I have it on good 

 authority that after the publication of the September re- 

 port he received several exorbitant offers; to mention 

 only one of them : a local vaudeville company was ready 

 to pay him 30,000 to 60,000 marks per month. He re- 

 fused every one of these offers. Some may say that per- 

 haps he wanted still more. But if he knew that the day of 

 judgment was close at hand, he also knew that before 

 then, if ever, was the sunshiny day on which to make his 

 hay. A more auspicious time he could never hope to see 

 again. — Let us add, once more, that he never charged 

 admission to any of Hans's performances, although there 

 were many who were anxious to see the horse, and many 

 enthusiasts had come from a great distance. And finally, 

 he was an old man, unmarried and entirely alone, a prop- 

 erty owner, but a man whose wants were few and very 

 simple — and his Hans was almost his sole companion. 

 Is it possible that such a man, one who had all the pride 

 of gentle birth, would become a trickster in his old age, 

 all for the love of money? 



The unreliability of Mr. von Osten's signs is good 

 proof of their involuntary nature. Anyone who had seen 

 him work with the horse could not have helped noticing 

 that he certainly did not have complete control over the 

 animal, and was not able, at a given moment, to make 

 Hans perform a certain feat, as would have been the case 



