"We hope to have picked out the best features of every International Horse Show," said Rensslaer. "The system of having appointment classes, will spare the public the ugly sight of seeing horses driven in quite inappropriate carriages, such as a fat hackney in an American speed wagon, and so on, thus a great impetus will be given to the carriage trade. Then there will be the ladies' 'George the Fourth' phaeton class, a low two-horse carriage with a seat for a servant behind, which is the proper carriage for ladies driving, instead of a high dogcart, or any two-wheeled carriage, which is only fit for a publican's wife out on a bank holiday." "Or a Trotting Meeting," said Gay slyly. He laughed. "There is no doubt," he said, "that the show will do good, not only by welding the forces of breeders, exhibitors, and dealers together, but also by encouraging the breeding of the best type of the English horse, and thus help to remove one of the most serious objections to automobilism--the fear that it will result in the ultimate extinction of the horse. It will be the finest display of horse-flesh and of horsemanship that has ever been seen on so gigantic a scale in England, or perhaps even in the world." "I hope we are all right!" exclaimed Gay, jealous for her mother-country. "Well," said Rensslaer, "though the competition of America and the Continent will be strong, and meet with a certain amount of success, I think the English exhibitors will hold their own, and from whatever country the winners come, it is always the English strain that wins, though the fact is possibly more obvious to the foreigner than to ourselves. I want you and the Professor to come to Elsinore one day, and see what I am sending--" But Gay declared this to be impossible; her brother had completely withdrawn into his scientific shell, and to dislodge him was impossible. Besides, Rensslaer had delayed so long in inviting them, a little to her surprise, that now she felt in no particular hurry to go, and he did not press the point. It was only later that she discovered in his apparent inhospitality, but another instance of Rensslaer's fine tact, how it was not until he knew her to be finally disgusted with Trotting as a sport, that he showed her the real thing, the game as it should be played, such Trotters as she had never dreamed of. It would be hard to say why Rensslaer, in whose life women had no place, (though he had his own romance hidden away, as Gay had always suspected), took so much interest in the girl, gave her so much precious time, when in his many-sided life, and the multiplicity and engrossing interest of his hobbies, he had none to spare for his old friends, much less for society, which he despised.