Page:Neuroomia.djvu/82

70 I cursed the flanillas in nautical language, and made inquiries about my wounds.

He said I had one on the back of my head, caused by the fall, and another in my back, made by the animal's horns; but that they would soon be healed. He then inquired how I came to grief, and I gave him an account of my first ride in Neuroomia.

He said that I had acted altogether wrong. If I wanted the animal to go faster, I should have pinched his left ear; if slowly, should have scratched his near flank; and if I wished to bring him to a halt at once, all I had to do was to squeeze the back of his neck with my finger and thumb; but they were, he continued, generally broken in and used by boys, who had various ways of making themselves understood to them. However, he had certainly never heard of the treatment I had adopted, and said that flanillas were not vicious, and that I must have frightened the animal out of his reckoning by my capers; whereupon I told him that with us horses were beaten and spurred. He then asked if the horse by nature was a very fierce animal. I replied in the negative. He said he did not know enough about horses to pass an opinion concerning the wisdom