The same whimsical propensity followed him through life. Four years after we had made our last voyage to Monkey Island in “the best skiff that ever was built,” I found him exhibiting himself in Hyde Park on “the best horse that ever was mounted.” A minute was sufficient for the compliments of our reciprocal recognition, and the Honourable Ernest Adolphus Volant launched out forthwith into a rhapsody on the merits of the proud animal he bestrode. “Kremlin, got by Smolensko, out of my uncle’s old mare. Do you know anything of a horse? Look at his shoulder! Upon my honour, it is a model for a sculptor. And feel how he is ribbed up; not a pin loose here; knit together like a ship’s planks; trots fourteen miles an hour without turning a hair, and carries fifteen stone up to any hounds in England. I hate your smart dressy creatures, as slender as a greyhound and as tender as a gazelle, that look as if they had been stabled in drawing-rooms and taken their turn with the poodle in my lady’s lap. I like to have plenty of bone under me. If this horse had been properly ridden, Courtenay, he would have won the Hunters’ Stakes at our place in a canter. He has not a leg that is not worth a hundred pounds. Seriously, I think there is not such another horse in the kingdom.” But before a month had gone by, the Honourable Ernest Adolphus Volant was ambling down the ride in a pair of stirrups far more nearly approaching _terra firma_ than those in which his illustrious feet had been reclining while he held forth on the excellences of Kremlin. “Oh yes,” he said, when I inquired after “the best horse in England,” “Kremlin is a magnificent animal; but then, after all, his proper place is with the hounds. One might as well wear one’s scarlet in a ball-room as ride Kremlin in the Park. And so I have bought Mrs. Davenant’s Bijou--and a perfect bijou she is; throws out her little legs like an opera-dancer, and tosses her head as if she knew that her neck is irresistible. You will not find such another mane and tail in all London. Mrs. Davenant’s own maid used to put up both in papers every night of the week. She is quite a love!” And so the Honourable Ernest Adolphus Volant trotted off, on a smart dressy creature, as slender as a greyhound and as tender as a gazelle, that looked as if it had been stabled in a drawing-room and taken a turn with the poodle in my lady’s lap.