“You are most kind,” I answered—with a little hesitation, I suppose, fearing to bore my new acquaintance.
“Don’t make me false to horse and housekeeper, Mr. Gowrie,” he resumed.—“I put the horse first, because I could more easily explain the thing to Mrs. Waterhouse than to Memnon.”
“Could you explain it to Memnon?”
“I should have a try!” he answered, with a peculiar smile.
“You hold yourself bound then to keep faith with your horse?”
“Bound just as with a man—that is, as far as the horse can understand me. A word understood is binding, whether spoken to horse, or man, or pig. It makes it the more important that we can do so little, must work so slowly, for the education of the lower animals. It seems to me an absolute horror that a man should lie to an inferior creature. Just think—if an angel were to lie to us! What a shock to find we had been reposing faith in a devil.”
“Excuse me—I thought you said an angel!”
“When he lied, would he not be a devil?—But let us follow Memnon, and as we walk I will tell you more about him.”
He turned to the wood.
“The horse,” I said, pointing, “went that way!”