A WALKING DELEGATE
"I ’ve seen 'em trot. That was enough for me. Idon't want to know any more. Trottin' 's immoral."
"Waal, I '11 tell you this much. They don't bloat, an' they don't pamp—much. I don't hold out to be no trotter myself, though I am free to say I had hopes that way—onct. But I do say, fer I 've seen 'em trained, that a trotter don't trot with his feet: he trots with his head; an' he does more work—ef you know what that is—in a week than you er your sire ever done in all your lives. He 's everlastingly at it, a trotter is; an' when he is n't, he 's studyin' haow. You seen 'em trot? Much you hev! You was hitched to a rail, back o' the stand, in a buckboard with a soap-box nailed on the slats, an' a frowzy buff'lo atop, while your man peddled rum fer lemonade to little boys as thought they was actin' manly, till you was both run off the track and jailed—you intoed, shufflin', sway-backed, wind-suckin' skate, you!"
"Don't get het up, Deacon," said Tweezy, quietly.
"Now, suh, would you consider a fox-trot, an' single-foot, an' rack, an' pace, an' amble, distinctions not worth distinguishin'? I assuah you, gentlemen, there was a time befo' I was afflicted in my hip, if you 'll pardon me, Miss Tuck, when I was quite celebrated in Paduky for all those gaits; an' in my opinion the Deacon 's co'rect when he says that a ho'se of any position in society gets his gaits by his haid, an' not by—his, ah, limbs, Miss Tuck. I reckon I 'm very little good now, but I 'm rememberin' the things I used to do befo' I took to transpo'tin' real estate with the help and assistance of this gentleman here." He looked at Muldoon.
[64]
