'What may you think of him?' he inquired at last.
'The horse's not bad—the hind legs aren't quite sound.'
'His legs are first-rate!' Sitnikov rejoined, with an air of conviction;' and his hind-quarters … just look, sir … broad as an oven—you could sleep up there.' 'His pasterns are long.'
'Long! mercy on us! Start him, Petya, start him, but at a trot, a trot … don't let him gallop.'
Again Petya ran round the yard with Ermine. None of us spoke for a little.
'There, lead him back,' said Sitnikov,' and show us Falcon.'
Falcon, a gaunt beast of Dutch extraction with sloping hind-quarters, as black as a beetle, turned out to be little better than Ermine. He was one of those beasts of whom fanciers will tell you that 'they go chopping and mincing and dancing about,' meaning thereby that they prance and throw out their fore-legs to right and to left without making much headway. Middle-aged merchants have a great fancy for such horses; their action recalls the swaggering gait of a smart waiter; they do well in single harness for an after-dinner drive; with mincing paces and curved neck they zealously draw a clumsy droshky laden with an overfed coachman, a depressed, dyspeptic merchant, and his lymphatic wife, in a blue silk mantle, with a lilac handkerchief over her head. Falcon too I declined. Sitnikov showed me several horses…. One at last, a dapple-grey beast of Voyakov breed, took my fancy. I could not restrain my satisfaction, and patted him on the withers. Sitnikov at once feigned absolute indifference.
"Well, does he go well in harness?" I inquired. (They never speak of a trotting horse as "being driven.")
"Oh, yes," answered the horsedealer carelessly.
"Can I see him?"