'Then come along and bring your instrument,' I said, 'and you can take me at the stables; they're close by.'
'No need for that,' he replied cheerfully. 'I'll find you a mount here.'
And the wretched lunatic went behind the screen and wheeled out a small wooden quadruped covered with large round spots!
'She's a strawberry roan,' he said; 'observe the strawberries. So, my beauty, quiet, then! Now settle yourself easily in the saddle, as if you were in the Row, with your face to the tail.'
'Listen to me for one moment,' I entreated tremulously. 'I assure you that I am not in the habit of appearing in Rotten Row on a spotted wooden horse, nor does any one, I assure you—any one mount a horse of any description with his face towards the crupper! If you take me like that, you will betray your ignorance—you will be laughed at!'
When people tell you it is possible to hoodwink the insane by any specious show of argument, don't believe them; my own experience is that demented persons can be quite perversely logical when it suits their purpose.
'Pardon me,' he said, 'you will be laughed at possibly—not I. I cannot be held responsible for the caprices of my clients. Mount, please; she'll carry you perfectly.'
'I will,' I said, 'if you'll give me the revolver to hold. I—I should like to be done with a revolver.'
'I shall be delighted to do you with a revolver,' he said grimly, 'but not yet; and if I lent you the weapon now, I could not answer for your being able to hold the horse as well—she has never been broken in to firearms. I'll hold the revolver. One—two—three.'
I mounted; why had I not disregarded the expense and gone to Lenz and Kamerer? Lenz does not pose his customers by the aid of a revolver. Kamerer, I was sure, would not put his patrons through these degrading tomfooleries.