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I mounted at the stables, with just a passing qualm, perhaps, while my stirrup-leathers were being adjusted, and a little awkwardness in taking up my reins, which were more twisted than I could have wished; however, at length, I found myself embarked on the stream of traffic on the back of the chestnut–whose name, by the way, was Brutus.

Shall I ever forget the pride and ecstasy of finding that I had my steed under perfect control, that we threaded the maze of carriages with absolute security? I turned him into the Park, and clucked my tongue: he broke into a canter, and how shall I describe my delight at the discovery that it was not uncomfortable? I said ‘Woa,’ and he stopped, so gradually that my equilibrium was not seriously disturbed; he trotted, and still I accommodated myself to his movements without any positive inconvenience. I could have embraced him for gratitude: never before had I been upon a beast whose paces were so easy, whose behaviour was so considerate. I could ride at last! or, which amounted to the same thing, I could ride the horse I was on, and I would ‘use no other.’ I was about to meet Diana Chetwynd, and need not fear even to encounter her critical eyes.

We had crossed the Serpentine bridge, and were just turning in upon the Ride, when–and here I am only too conscious that what I am about to say may strike you as almost incredible–when I heard an unfamiliar voice addressing me with, ‘I say–you!’ and the moment afterwards realised that it proceeded from my own horse!

I am not ashamed to own that I was as nearly off as possible; for a more practised rider than I could pretend to be might have a difficulty in preserving his equanimity in this all but unparalleled situation. I was too much engaged in feeling for my left stirrup to make any reply, and presently the horse spoke once more. ‘I say,’ he inquired, and I failed to discern the slightest trace of respect in his tone–‘do you think you can ride?’ You can judge for yourself how disconcerting the inquiry must have been from such lips: I felt rooted to the saddle–a sensation which, with me, was sufficiently rare. I looked round in helpless bewilderment, at the shimmering Serpentine, and the white houses in Park Lane gleaming out of a lilac haze, at the cocoa-coloured Row, and the flash of distant carriage-wheels in the sunlight: all looked as usual–and yet, there was I on the back of a horse which had just inquired ‘whether I thought I could ride’!

‘I have had two dozen lessons at a riding-school,’ I said at last, with rather a flabby dignity.

‘I should hardly have suspected it,’ was his brutal retort. ‘You are evidently one of the hopeless cases.’

I was deeply hurt, the more so because I could not deny that he had some claim to be a judge. ‘I–I thought we were getting on so nicely together,’ I faltered, and all he said in reply to that was, ‘Did you?’

‘Do you know,’ I began, striving to be conversational, ‘I never was on a horse that talked before.’

‘You are enough to make any horse talk,’ he answered; ‘but I suppose I am an exception.’

‘I think you must be,’ said I. ‘The only horses I ever heard of as possessing the gift of speech were the Houyhnhnms.’

‘How do you know I am not one of them?’ he replied.

‘If you are, you will understand that I took the liberty of mounting you under a very pardonable mistake; and if you will have the goodness to stand still, I will no longer detain you.’

‘Not so fast,’ said he: ‘I want to know something more about you first. I should say now you were a man with plenty of oats.’

‘I am–well off,’ I said. How I wished I was!

‘I have long been looking out for a proprietor who would not overwork me: now, of course, I don’t know, but you scarcely strike me as a hard rider.’