e to take us riding behind a spanking pair of geldings, that I was
assured were standard bred.

In Lexington you never use the general term "horse." You speak of a mare,
a gelding, a horse, a four-year-old, a weanling or a sucker. To refer to a
trotter as a thoroughbred is to suffer social ostracism, and to obfuscate
a side-wheeler with a single-footer is proof of degeneracy. This applies
equally to the ethics of the ballroom or the livery-stable. In Kentucky
they read Richard's famous lines thus: "A saddler! a saddler! my kingdom
for a saddler!" So when I complimented General Bellicose on his geldings
and noted that they went square without boots or weights, and that he used
no blinders, it thawed the social ice, and we were as brothers. Then I led
the way cautiously to Henry Clay, and the General assured me that in his
opinion the Henry Clays were even better than the George Wilkes. To be
sure, Wilkes had more in the 'thirty list, but the Clays had brains, and
were cheerful; they neither lugged nor hung back, whereas you always had
to lay whip to a Wilkes in order to get along a bit, or else use a gag
and overcheck.

I pressed Little Emily's hand under the lap-robe and asked her if all
Kentuckians were believers in metempsychosis. "Colonel Littlejourneys is
making fun of you, General," said Little Emily; "the Colonel is talking
about the man, and you are discussing trotters!"

And then I apologized, but the General said it was he who should make the
apology, and raising the carriage-seat brought out a box of genuine Henry
Clay Havanas, in proof of amity.

It's a very foolish thing to smile at a man who rides a hobby. Once there
was a man who rode a hobby all his life, to the great amusement of his
enemies and the mortification of his wife; and when the man was dead they
found it was a real live horse and had carried the man many long miles.

General Bellicose loves a horse; so does Little Emily and so do I. But
Little Emily and the General know history and have sounded politics in a
way that puts me in the kindergarten; and I found before the day was over
that what one did not know about the political history of America the
other did. And mixed up in it all we discussed the merits of the fox-trot
versus the single-foot.

We saw the famous Clay monument, built by the State at a cost of nearly a
hundred thousand dollars, and with uncovered heads gazed through the
gratings into the crypt where lies the dust of the g