I bethought me now who the man was. He had been but a year or two in the neighbourhood, though the property on which we now stood had been his own for a good many years. Some said he had bought it; others knew he had inherited it. All agreed he was a very peculiar person, with ways so oddly unreasonable that it was evident he had, in his wanderings over the face of the earth, gradually lost hold of what sense he might at one time have possessed, and was in consequence a good deal cracked. There seemed nothing, however, in his behaviour or appearance to suggest such a conclusion: a man could hardly be counted beside himself because he was on terms of friendship with his horse. It took me but a moment to recall his name--Skymer--one odd enough to assist the memory. I caught it ere he had done mingling fresh caresses with those of his long-tailed friend. When I came to know him better, I knew that he had thus given me opportunity--such as he would to a horse--of thinking whether I should like to know him better: Mr. Skymer’s way was not to offer himself, but to give easy opportunity to any who might wish to know him. I learned afterward that he knew my name and suspected my person: being rather prejudiced in my favour because of the kind of thing I wrote, he was now waiting to see whether approximation would follow. “Pardon my rude lingering,” I said; “that lovely animal is enough to make one desire nearer acquaintance with his owner. I don’t think I ever saw such a perfect creature!” I remembered the next moment that I had heard said of Mr. Skymer that he liked beasts better than men, but I soon found this was only one of the foolish things constantly said of honest men by those who do not understand them. There are women even who love dogs and dislike children; but, nauseous fact as this is, it is not so nauseous as the fact that there are men who believe in no animal rights, or in any God of the animals, and think we may do what we please with them, indulging at their cost an insane thirst after knowledge. Injustice may discover facts, but never truth. “I grant him nearly a perfect creature,” he answered, “But he is far more nearly perfect than you yet know him! Excuse me for speaking so confidently; but if we were half as far on for men, as Memnon is for a horse, the kingdom of heaven would be a good deal nearer!” “He seems an old horse!” “He is an old horse--much older than you can think after seeing him come over that paling as he did. He is forty.” “Is it possible!” “I know and can prove his age as certainly as my own. He is the son of an Arab mare and an English thoroughbred.--Come here, Memnon!” The horse, who had been standing behind like a servant in waiting, put his beautiful head over his master’s shoulder. “Memnon,” said Mr. Skymer, “go home and tell Mrs. Waterhouse I hope to bring a gentleman with me to lunch.” The horse walked gently past us, then started at a quick trot, which almost immediately became a gallop.