“Oh, I know that they say he has the heaves; but one of the things I bought him for was because he breathes so loud.  That is a sign that he has a plenty of wind.  You take any ordinary horse, and you can’t hear him draw a breath; his lungs are frail and he daren’t inflate ’em.  But my horse fills his up and blows ’em out again vigorously, so people can hear for themselves how he enjoys the fresh air.  Now, I’ll let you into a secret, only mind you don’t go to whispering it about:  When you want to buy a horse, go and stand off a quarter of a mile and see if you can hear him kinder sighing.  If you can, why go for that horse; he’s worth his weight in gold.  That’s strictly between you and me, now mind!

“And you know that old idiot, Potts, was trying to joke me because the horse was sprung in the knees, as if that was not the very thing that made me resolve to have that horse if I ran him up to five hundred dollars!  You are a young man with no experience in the world, and I’ll tell you why I like such legs:  They give the horse more leverage.  Do you see?  When a horse’s leg is straight, the more he bears on it, the more likely he is to fracture the bone.  But you curve that leg a little to the front, and the upper bone bears obliquely on the lower bone, the pressure is distributed and the horse has plenty of purchase.  It is the well-known principle of the arch, you know.  If it’s good in building a house, why isn’t it good in getting up a horse?  Sprung in the knees!  Why, good gracious, man! a horse that is not sprung is not any horse at all; he is only fit for soap-fat and glue.  Now, that’s as true as my name’s Butterwick.

“And as for his tail, that they talk so much about!  Who’n the thunder wanted a long tail on the horse?  I knew well enough it was short and had only six or seven hairs on it.  But the Romans and Egyptians made their horses bob-tailed, and why?  Maybe you ain’t up in ancient history?  Why, those old Romans knew that a horse with a fifteen-inch tail had more meat on him than a horse with a four-inch tail, and consequently required more nourishment.  They knew that more muscular force is expended in brandishing a long tail than a short one, and muscular force is made by food, so they chopped off their horses’ tails to make ’em eat less.  They had level heads in those times.  They were up in scientific knowledge.  But what do these idiots around this town know about such things?  Let ’em laugh.  I can stand a tail that saves me a couple of bushels of oats a year.  I’ll bet you anything that there’s millions and millions of dollars wasted—­just thrown away—­in this country every year furnishing nutriment to tails that are of no earthly use to the horses after they’re nourished.  You can depend on that.  I’ve examined the government statistics, and they’re enough to make a man cry to see how wasteful the American people are.