"No," rejoined the Idiot. "It's too noisy for that. I go to see the people. People are far more interesting to me than horses, and I get more solid fun out of seeing the nabobs go through their paces than could be got out of a million nags of high degree kicking up their heels in the ring. If they'd make the horses do all sorts of stunts, it might be different, but they don't. They show you the same old stuff year in and year out, and things that you can see almost any fine day in the Park during the season. You and I know that a four-horse team can pull a tally-ho coach around without breaking its collective neck. We know that two horses harnessed together fore and aft instead of abreast are called a tandem, and can drag a cart on two wheels and about a mile high a reasonable distance without falling dead. There isn't anything new or startling in their performance, and why anybody should pay to see them doing the commonplace, every-day act I don't know. It isn't as if they had a lot of thoroughbreds on exhibition who could sit down at a table and play a round of bridge whist or poker. That would be worth seeing. So would a horse that could play 'Cavalleria Rusticana' on the piano, but when it comes to dragging a hansom-cab or a grocery-wagon around the tanbark, why, it seems to me to lack novelty." "The idea of a horse playing bridge whist!" jeered the Bibliomaniac. "What a preposterous proposition!" "Well, I've seen fellows with less sense than the average horse make a pretty good stab at it at the club," said the Idiot. "Perhaps my suggestion is extreme, but I put it that way merely to emphasize my point. I've seen an educated pig play cards, though, and I don't see why they can't put the horse through very much the same course of treatment and teach him to do something that would make him more of an object of interest when he has his week of glory. I don't care what it is as long as it is out of the ordinary." "There is nothing in the world that is more impressive than a fine horse in action," said the Doctor. "What you suggest would take away from his dignity and make him a freak."