“Oh,” he said—‘Excuse me, ladies, but did I ever tell you that I come of a very ancient Spanish stock?’
“Generally we just said ‘Yes, and went on eating, but it didn’t stop his talk.’
“‘Oh, those were good old days!’ he would say. ‘I was ridden by a toreador in those days.’ If there were a calf in the field the silly little thing would say ‘What is a Toreador?’ and that was just what the old horse wanted to be asked.
“‘A toreador is a man who fights bulls,’ he would say proudly. ‘I and my companions used to be ridden by these toreadors into the arena, which is a large round place, like the thing that is called a circus ring I believe. We didn’t wear harness as horses do here, but what our toreadors called “trappings.” And these trappings were made of bright red cloth. Our toreadors were dressed in scarlet, too, and carried little pieces of red silk in their hands. Then someone would open a door in the side of the arena and the bull would come in. He was always rather stupid at first and used to stare about him without seeing anything, until the toreadors galloped up with us and shouted and waved their red flags. Then the silly old thing would get angry, and try to run his horns into us, but we were always too quick for him. At least, of course, some of the horses used to get hurt sometimes, but I never did. It only needed a little sense to keep out of the way of such a stupid old noodle as a bull. And he always got killed in the end by our brave toreadors.’
“‘Brave toreadors, indeed!’ we used to say very angrily, because of course it was very rude of him to come and talk of our relations the bulls like that. Besides, we never really believed him at all. He only made it up to annoy us.”
“Oh, no, Brownie!” I said, “there really are bull-fights you know.”
“Nonsense,” said Brownie “don’t try to teach me! I know more of the world than you do, and I don’t believe it.”
“All right, Brownie dear,” I said quickly, “you do know ever so many things. Please, go on with the story.”
