“Well, no, I can’t claim it. I can take down bars, I can distinguish oats from shoe-pegs, I can blaspheme a saddle-boil with the college-bred, and I know a few other things—not many; I have had no chance, I have always had to work; besides, I am of low birth and no family. You speak my dialect like a native, but you are not a Mexican Plug, you are a gentleman, I can see that; and educated, of course.”
“Yes, I am of old family, and not illiterate. I am a fossil.”
“A which?”
“Fossil. The first horses were fossils. They date back two million years.”
“Gr-eat sand and sage-brush! do you mean it?”
“Yes, it is true. The bones of my ancestors are held in reverence and worship, even by men. They do not leave them exposed to the weather when they find them, but carry them three thousand miles and enshrine them in their temples of learning, and worship them.”
“It is wonderful! I knew you must be a person of distinction, by your fine presence and courtly address, and by the fact that you are not subjected to the indignity of hobbles, like myself and the rest. Would you tell me your name?”
“You have probably heard of it—Soldier Boy.”
“What!—the renowned, the illustrious?”
“Even so.”