At times he is really unable to believe what he sees and knows, that it is all up and that there is no use hoping for a hunt. His desires have been too intense. He repudiates the signs and symbols—chooses not to see the city walking-stick, the careful citified clothes I am wearing. He pushes through the gate with me, switches around outside in a half turn, and seeks to draw me towards the right by starting to gallop in this direction and by turning his head towards me, forces himself to overlook the fateful No which I oppose to his efforts. He comes back when I actually do turn towards the left, accompanies me, snorting deeply, and ejaculating short, confused high notes which seem to arise from the tremendous tension in his interior, as I walk along the fence of the garden, and then he begins to jump back and forth over the pickets of the adjacent public park. These pickets are rather high, and he groans a little in his flight through the air out of fear lest he hurt himself. He makes these leaps impelled by a kind of desperate gaiety, scornful of all hard facts, and also to bribe me, to work upon my sympathies by his cleverness. For it is not yet quite _impossible_—however improbable it may seem—that I may nevertheless leave the city path at the end of the park, once more turn towards the left and lead him on to liberty—even if only by way of the slightly roundabout way to the post-box. This happens, it is true, but it happens only rarely. Once this hope has dissolved into empty air, Bashan settles down upon his haunches and lets me go my way.