. There was
something very strange in the fact that a person unattainted of crime,
and not morally disabled in any known way, could not take his money and
buy such a horse as he wanted with it. His acquaintance began to
recommend men to him. "If you want a horse, Captain Jenks is your man."
"Why don't you go to Major Snaffle? He'd take pleasure in it." But my
friend, naturally reluctant to trouble others, and sickened by long
failure, as well as maddened by the absurdity that if you wanted a horse
you must first get a man, neglected this really good advice. He lost his
interest in the business, and dismissed with lack-lustre indifference
the horses which continued to be brought to his gate. He felt that his
position before the community was becoming notorious and ridiculous. He
slept badly; his long endeavor for a horse ended in nightmares.

One day he said to a gentleman whose turn-out he had long admired, "I
wonder if you couldn't find me a horse!"

"Want a horse?"

"Want a horse! I thought my need was known beyond the sun. I thought my
want of a horse was branded on my forehead."

This gentleman laughed, and then he said, "I've just seen a mare that
would suit you. I thought of buying her, but I want a match, and this
mare is too small. She'll be round here in fifteen minutes, and I'll
take you out with her. Can you wait?"

"Wait!" My friend laughed in his turn.

The mare dashed up before the fifteen minutes had passed. She was
beautiful, black as a coal; and kind as a kitten, said her driver. My
friend thought her head was rather big. "Why, yes, she's a _pony_-horse;
that's what I like about her."

She trotted off wonderfully, and my friend felt that the thing was now
done.

The gentleman, who was driving, laid his head on one side, and listened.
"Clicks, don't she?"

"She _does_ click," said my friend obligingly.

"Hear it?" asked the gentleman.

"Well, if you ask me," said my friend, "I _don't_ hear it. What _is_
clicking?"

"Oh, striking the heel of her fore-foot with the toe of her hind-foot.
Sometimes it comes from bad shoeing. Some people like it. I don't
myself." After a while he added, "If you can get this mare for a hundred
and twenty-five, you'd better buy her."

"Well, I will," said my friend. He would have bought her, in fact, if
she had clicked like a noiseless sewing-machine. But the owner, remote
as Medford, and invisibly dealing, as usual, through a third person,
would not sell her