“It is a mortification to me to this day,” went on Reveille, “even though the outcome has justified me. You know what our equine code of honour is—how we won’t lie or trick or steal or kill, as the humans do. Well, for nearly two months I was as false and tricky as a man.”
“I don’t believe it,” dissented Bubbles.
“The truly great always depreciate themselves,” asserted one of the mares.
“No, ladies, I speak the truth,” reiterated the warrior; “even now the memory galls me worse than a spur.”
“It would ease your conscience, I am sure,” suggested Bubbles, “to confess the wrong, if wrong there was. A highly sensitive and chivalric nature so often takes a morbidly extreme view of what is at most but a peccadillo.”
“This, alas! was no peccadillo,” sighed Reveille, “as you will acknowledge after hearing it.”
“I may be a colt, but I’m not a dolt,” sneered the polo pony to himself. “As if we weren’t all aware that the garrulous old fool has been itching to inflict his long tail upon us for the last ten minutes.”
“My one consolation,” continued Reveille, “is that the roan filly was in the traces with me and an equal culprit in—”
“I thought that one of the sex of Adam would saddle it on a woman before he got through,” interjected the cob.
“Cherchez la femme!” laughed the polo pony, delighted to trot out his French.