"
"How perfectly awful!" said the young woman nearest me; but the one at
the other end of the gate didn't seem to mind what I said, but shifted
off on another track.
"And then there's your horses' tails," said she; "anything nastier
couldn't be fancied. Hundreds of them everywhere with long tails down
to their heels, as if they belong to heathens who had never been
civilized."
"Heathens?" said I. "If you call the Arabians heathens, who have the
finest horses in the world, and wouldn't any more think of cutting off
their tails than they would think of cutting their legs off; and if
you call the cruel scoundrels who torture their poor horses by sawing
their bones apart so as to get a little stuck-up bob on behind, like a
moth-eaten paint-brush--if you call them Christians, then I suppose
you're right. There is a law in some parts of our country against the
wickedness of chopping off the tails of live horses, and if you had
such a law here you'd be a good deal more Christian-like than you are,
to say nothing of getting credit for decent taste."
By this time I had forgotten all about what Jone and I had agreed upon
as to arguing over the differences between countries, and I was just as
peppery as a wasp. The young woman at the other end of the gate was
rather waspy too, for she seemed to want to sting me wherever she could
find a spot uncovered; and now she dropped off her horses' tails, and
began to laugh until her face got purple.
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