"I didn't say it wouldn't," rejoined the Idiot. "In fact, my remarks implied that it would. You don't quite understand my meaning. If I owned a stable I'd much rather my horses didn't play bridge whist, because, in all probability, they'd be sending into the house at all hours of the night asking me to come over to the barn and make a fourth hand. It's bad enough having your neighbors doing that sort of thing without encouraging your horse to go into the business. Nor would it please me as a lover of horseback-riding to have a mount that could play grand opera on the piano. The chances are it would spoil three good things--the horse, the piano, and the opera--but if I were getting up a show and asking people from all over the country to pay good money to get into it, then I should want just such things. In the ordinary daily pursuits of equine life the horse suits me just as he is, but for the extraordinary requirements of an exhibition he lacks diverting qualities. He's more solemn than a play by Sudermann or Blanketty Bjornsen; he is as lacking in originality as a comic-opera score by Sir Reginald de Bergerac, and his drawing powers, outside of cab-work, as far as I am concerned, are absolutely nil. A horse that can draw a picture I'd travel miles to see. A horse that can't draw anything but a T-cart or an ice-wagon hasn't two cents' worth of interest in my eyes." "But can't you see the beauty in the action of a horse?" demanded the Doctor. "It all depends on his actions," said the Idiot. "I've seen horses whose actions were highly uncivilized." "I mean his form--not his behavior," said the Doctor. "Well, I've never understood enough about horses to speak intelligently on that point," observed the Idiot. "It's incomprehensible to me how your so-called judges reason. If a horse trots along hiking his fore-legs 'way up in the air as if he were grinding an invisible hand-organ with both feet, people rave over his high-stepping and call him all sorts of fine names. But if he does the same thing with his hind-legs they call it springhalt or stringhalt, or something of that kind, and set him down as a beastly old plug. The scheme seems to me to be inconsistent, and if I were a horse I'm blessed if I think I'd know what to do. How a thing can be an accomplishment in front and a blemish behind is beyond me, but there is the fact. They give a blue ribbon to the front-hiker and kick the hind-hiker out of the show altogether--they wouldn't even pin a Bryan button on his breast." "I fancy a baby show is about your size," said the Doctor.