and the moment afterwards realised
that it proceeded from my own horse!

I am not ashamed to own that I was as nearly off as possible; for a more
practised rider than I could pretend to be might have a difficulty in
preserving his equanimity in this all but unparalleled situation. I was
too much engaged in feeling for my left stirrup to make any reply, and
presently the horse spoke once more. 'I say,' he inquired, and I failed
to discern the slightest trace of respect in his tone--'do you think you
can ride?' You can judge for yourself how disconcerting the inquiry must
have been from such lips: I felt rooted to the saddle--a sensation
which, with me, was sufficiently rare. I looked round in helpless
bewilderment, at the shimmering Serpentine, and the white houses in Park
Lane gleaming out of a lilac haze, at the cocoa-coloured Row, and the
flash of distant carriage-wheels in the sunlight: all looked as
usual--and yet, there was I on the back of a horse which had just
inquired 'whether I thought I could ride'!

'I have had two dozen lessons at a riding-school,' I said at last, with
rather a flabby dignity.

'I should hardly have suspected it,' was his brutal retort. 'You are
evidently one of the hopeless cases.'

I was deeply hurt, the more so because I could not deny that he had some
claim to be a judge. 'I--I thought we were getting on so nicely
together,' I faltered, and all he said in reply to that was, '_Did_
you?'

'Do you know,' I began, striving to be conversational, 'I never was on a
horse that talked before.'

'You are enough to make any horse talk,' he answered; 'but I suppose I
_am_ an exception.'

'I think you must be,' said I. 'The only horses I ever heard of as
possessing the gift of speech were the Houyhnhnms.'

'How do you know I am not one of them?' he replied.

'If you are, you will understand that I took the liberty of mounting you
under a very pardonable mistake; and if you will have the goodness to
stand still, I will no longer detain you.'

'Not so fast,' said he: 'I want to know something more about you first.
I should say now you were a man with plenty of oats.'

'I am--well off,' I said. How I wished I was!

'I have long been looking out for a proprietor who would not overwork
me: now, of course, I don't know, but you scarcely strike me as a _hard_
rider.'

'I do not think I could be fairly accused of that,' I answered, with all
the consciousness of innocence.

'Just so--the