'There!' my guide exclaimed, waving the lanthorn to and fro
boastfully, that I might see its points. 'What do you say to
that? Is that an undersized pony?'
'No,' I answered, purposely stinting my praise. 'It is pretty
fair--for this country.'
'Or any country,' he answered wrathfully. 'Or any country, I
say--I don't care where it is! And I have reason to know! Why,
man, that horse is--But there, that is a good horse, if ever you
saw one!' And with that he ended--abruptly and lamely; lowered
the lanthorn with a sudden gesture, and turned to the door. He
was on the instant in such hurry to leave that he almost
shouldered me out.
But I understood. I knew that he had neatly betrayed all--that
he had been on the point of blurting out that that was M. de
Cocheforet's horse! M. Cocheforet's COMPRENEZ BIEN! And while I
turned away my face in the darkness that he might not see me
smile, I was not surprised to find the man in a moment changed,
and become, in the closing of the door, as sober and suspicious
as before, ashamed of himself and enraged with me, and in a mood
to cut my throat for a trifle.
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