le-leather skin
common in Englishmen, rarer in Americans,--never found in the Brahmin
caste, oftener in the military and the commodores: observing people know
what is meant; blow the seed-arrows from the white-kid-looking button
which holds them on a dandelion-stalk, and the pricked-pincushion surface
shows you what to look for. He had the loud gruff voice which implies
the right to command. He had the thick hand, stubbed fingers, with
bristled pads between their joints, square, broad thumb-nails, and sturdy
limbs, which mark a constitution made to use in rough out-door work. He
had the never-failing predilection for showy switch-tailed horses that
step high, and sidle about, and act as if they were going to do something
fearful the next minute, in the face of awed and admiring multitudes
gathered at mighty musters or imposing cattle-shows. He had no
objection, either, to holding the reins in a wagon behind another kind of
horse,--a slouching, listless beast, with a strong slant to his shoulder;
and a notable depth to his quarter and an emphatic angle at the hock, who
commonly walked or lounged along in a lazy trot of five or six miles an
hour; but, if a lively colt happened to come rattling up alongside, or a
brandy-faced old horse-jockey took the road to show off a fast nag, and
threw his dust into the Major's face, would pick his legs up all at once,
and straighten his body out, and swing off into a three-minute gait, in a
way that "Old Blue" himself need not have been ashamed of.

For some reason which must be left to the next generation of professors
to find out, the men who are knowing in horse-flesh have an eye also for,
let a long dash separate the brute creation from the angelic being now to
be named,--for lovely woman. Of this fact there can be no possible
doubt; and therefore you shall notice, that, if a fast horse trots before
two, one of the twain is apt to be a pretty bit of muliebrity, with
shapes to her, and eyes flying about in all directions.

Major Rowens, at that time Lieutenant of the Rockland Fusileers, had
driven and "traded" horses not a few before he turned his acquired skill
as a judge of physical advantages in another direction. He knew a neat,
snug hoof, a delicate pastern, a broad haunch, a deep chest, a close
ribbed-up barrel, as well as any other man in the town. He was not to be
taken in by your thick-jointed, heavy-headed cattle, without any go to
them, that suit a country-parson,