ached, and the traveller
looked at them both through a wreath of smoke.

"I wonder," said he, "why that man beats his horse?"

The driver was sitting at ease. He was not angry. He was not
impatient. There was nothing the matter with him at all. But he was
steadily beating the horse; not harshly, gently in truth. He beat the
horse without ill-will, almost without knowing he was doing it. It was
a sort of wrist exercise. A quick, delicate twitch of the whip that
caught the animal under the belly, always in the same place. It was
very skilful, but the driver was so proficient in his art that one
wondered why he had to practice at it any longer. And the horse did
not make any objection! Not even with his ears; they lay back to his
mane as he jogged steadily forward in the sunlight. His hooves were
shod with iron, but they moved with an unfaltering, humble regularity.
His mouth was filled with great, yellow teeth, but he kept his mouth
shut, and one could not see them. He did not increase or diminish his
pace under the lash; he jogged onwards, and did not seem to mind it.

The reins were jerked suddenly, and the horse turned into the path and
stopped, and when he stood he was not any quieter than when he had been
moving. He did not raise his head or whisk his tail. He did not move
his ears to the sounds behind and on either side of him. He did not
paw and fumble with his feet. There was a swarm of flies about his
head; they moved along from the point of his nose to the top of his
forehead, but mostly they clustered in black, obscene patches about his
eyes, and through these patches his eyes looked out with a strange
patience, a strange mildness. He was stating a fact over and over to
himself, and he could not think of anything else--

"There are no longer any meadows in the world," said he. "They came in
the night and took away the green meadows, and the horses do not know
what to do." . . . Horse! Horse! Little horse! . . . You do not
believe me. There are those who have no whips. There are children who
would love to lift you in their arms and stroke your head. . . .

The driver came again, he mounted to his seat, and the horse turned
carefully and trotted away.

The man with the cigarette looked after them for a few minutes, and
then he also turned carefully, to do his errands.

He reached the Railway Station and peered in at the clock. There were
some men in uniform striding busily about. Three or four people were