“Ah, sare, you are vare beautiful, and I moch appreciate your benevolence; bot I sud not like to risk my neck and crop outside an unqualified, contradictory quadruped.”
“Nothing of the sort!” exclaimed Sir Moses, “nothing of the sort! He’s the quietest, gentlest crittur alive—a child might ride him, mightn’t it, Cuddy?”
“Safest horse under the sun,” replied Cuddy Flintoff, confidently. “Don’t know such another. Have nothing to do but sit on his back, and give him his head, and he’ll take far better care of you than you can of him. He’s the nag to carry you close up to their stems. Ho-o-i-ck, forrard, ho-o-i-ck! Dash my buttons, Monsieur, but I think I see you sailing away. Shouldn’t be surprised if you were to bring home the brush, only you’ve got one under your nose as it is,” alluding to his moustache.
Jack at this looked rather sour, for somehow people don’t like to be laughed at; so he proceeded to push his tray about under the guests’ noses, by way of getting rid of the subject. He had no objection to a hunt, and to try and do what Cuddy Flintoff predicted, only he didn’t want to spoil his own clothes, or be made a butt of. So, having had his say, he retired as soon as he could, inquiring of Bankhead, when he got out, who that porky old fellow with the round, close-shaven face was.
When the second flight of tea-cups came in, Sir Moses was seated on a hardish chaise longue, beside our friend Mr. Pringle, to whom he was doing the agreeable attentive host, and a little of the inquisitive stranger; trying to find out as well about the Major and his family, as about Billy himself, his friends and belongings. The Baronet had rather cooled on the subject of mounting Monsieur, and thought to pave the way for a back-out.
“That’s a stout-built feller of yours,” observed he to Billy, kicking up his toe at Jack as he passed before them with the supplementary tray of cakes and cream, and so on.
“Yarse,” drawled Billy, wondering what matter it made to Sir Moses.
“Stouter than I took him for,” continued the Baronet, eyeing Jack’s broad back and strong undersettings. “That man’ll ride fourteen stun, I dessay.”
Billy had no opinion on the point so began admiring his pretty foot; comparing it with Sir Moses’s, which was rather thick and clumsy.
The Baronet conned the mount matter over in his mind; the man was heavy; the promised horse was old and weak; the country deep, and he didn’t know that Monsieur could ride,—altogether he thought it wouldn’t do. Let his master mount him if he liked, or let him stay at home and help Bankhead with the plate, or Peter with the shoes. So Sir Moses settled it in his own mind, as far as he was concerned, at least, and resumed his enquiries of our Billy. Which of the Miss Yammertons he thought the prettiest, which sang the best, who played the harp, if the Major indulged him with much hare-soup, and then glanced incidentally at his stud, and Bo-Peep.