Deeply attached did the two horses become to each other, and Old Worldly-Wise taught Young Innocence much that was afterwards of use to him. He told him of the city, where men sat, far into the night, and played cards or other games by the glare of torchlight or wax candle; of how they danced with or serenaded fair ladies till cock-crow. It contrasted strangely with True’s former quiet nights and peaceful days in the Valley of the Connecticut, but it interested him intensely and awakened longings within him. He marvelled to see Beautiful Bay active and spirited enough at his age to clear a five-barred gate like a greyhound, and to see his bearing under the saddle alike youthful and stylish. The old horse had a fund of anecdotes to impart about the Desert and its traditions. “Arabs,” he said, “think it wicked to change their coursers into beasts of burden and tillage. Why did Allah make the ox for the plough and the camel to transport merchandise, if not that the horse was for the race?” True had no answer ready, so Beautiful Bay continued: “If you meet one of the Faithful in the Desert mounted on a _kochlani_, and he shall say to you, ‘God bless you!’ before you can say, ‘And God’s blessing be upon you!’ he shall be out of sight.” True learned how to judge a horse by his color through Arabian tradition. “White is for princes, but these do not stand the heat; black brings good fortune, but fears rocky ground; chestnut is most active--if one tells you he has seen a horse ‘fly in the air,’ and the horse be chestnut, believe him!” There was a pause, during which True anxiously waited to hear what was said of bays. Finally he asked. “They say,” answered his father, with a certain natural pride, “that ‘bay is hardiest and best.’ If one tells you he has seen a horse ‘leap to the bottom of a precipice without hurting himself,’ and if he say ‘bay,’ believe him!” And being bay, True was happy. “The Arab,” continued the father, “who lives with his horse, and prizes him above his family, as is most meet and proper, learns to know him well. There are those in the Desert to-day who claim to trace the lineage of their horses back to those of Mohammed. These they train to endure hunger, fatigue and thirst to stand the Desert life. Some are said to be able to travel eighty leagues in twenty-four hours.” There were modern incidents in Beautiful Bay’s lore--tales of the Southern States--so lately colonies--told him by his famous father, Traveller, who was imported from England and owned by Colonel Tayloe of Virginia. “The blood of a thoroughbred flows quicker on the course than on a hill-side farm,” said the old horse, and related a story of the meet at Annapolis, when he and Colonel De Lancey went down from New York to visit The Dulaney of Maryland. Discussing the merits of the horses stood a group of the famous horsemen of the day: Tom Lee, of Virginia; Mason, of Gunstan Hall, and De Lancey, of New York--when The Dulaney joined them.