It was from his friendship with Macaire--attending races, going through stables, visiting armories, drills, and fields of review--that Forrest first learned to feel that keen love for horses which was one of his passions to the end of his life, and first took that intelligent interest in the law of the military drill which gradually grew upon him until he had appropriated its fruits. For the inartistic rudeness of his early gymnastic, his rough circus-tumbling, had left him somewhat stiff and enslaved in parts of his body. But rhythmic movements, regulated by will until they become automatic, free the muscles and joints and give the organism a liberal grace, a generous openness and ease of bearing. A few months after his début in New Orleans the "Advertiser" remarked, "We are happy to be able to say that Mr. E. Forrest now uses his limbs with freedom and grace." The improvement had made itself plain. The third of the set of comrades grouped about Forrest at this time was Gazonac, one of the most remarkable of the gentlemen gamblers and duellists for whom the Crescent City was famous fifty years ago. Such were the qualities of this smooth, imperturbable, and accomplished man, consummate master of every trick of his art and of every weapon of offence or defence, and such was the tone of popular sentiment in the place, that although gambling was his profession and duelling his diversion he neither had a bad conscience in himself nor was regarded as an outcast by the community. He was a rare judge and adept in everything concerning the physical powers of men, and the expression of their passions in real life under the most concentrated excitements. And he was himself trained to the very nicest possible degree of self-control. His muscular tissue, of the most elastic and tenacious texture, covered him like a garment flowing around his joints as if it had no fastenings, and under it he moved in subtle ease and concealment, allowing no conceivable provocation to extort any signal without consent of his will. His nervous system had been drilled to act with the precision of astronomical clock-work. His conscious calculations had the swiftness and exactitude of the instincts of animals. What he did not know concerning the public sporting life and the secret passionate life of the city was not worth knowing; and he knew it not superficially but through and through. He had fought a dozen duels and always killed his opponent. "How have you invariably come off victor?" Forrest once asked him. "It is easy enough," he answered, "if one is but complete master of himself, of his weapon, and of the situation, cool as personified mathematics. I always shoot, on an exact calculation, just enough quicker than my adversary for my ball to strike him as he fires, and so disorder his aim."