keeping its front paws for
beating time. But in detail it possessed individuality. Instead of the
usual sword or baton, the man was holding, stretched out in his hand, his
own plumed hat; and the horse, instead of the usual waterfall for a tail,
possessed a somewhat attenuated appendage that somehow appeared out of
keeping with his ostentatious behaviour. One felt that a horse with a
tail like that would not have pranced so much.

It stood in a small square not far from the further end of the
Karlsbrucke, but it stood there only temporarily. Before deciding
finally where to fix it, the town authorities had resolved, very
sensibly, to judge by practical test where it would look best.
Accordingly, they had made three rough copies of the statue--mere wooden
profiles, things that would not bear looking at closely, but which,
viewed from a little distance, produced all the effect that was
necessary. One of these they had set up at the approach to the Franz-
Josefsbrucke, a second stood in the open space behind the theatre, and
the third in the centre of the Wenzelsplatz.

"If George is not in the secret of this thing," said Harris--we were
walking by ourselves for an hour, he having remained behind in the hotel
to write a letter to his aunt,--"if he has not observed these statues,
then by their aid we will make a better and a thinner man of him, and
that this very evening."

So during dinner we sounded him, judiciously; and finding him ignorant of
the matter, we took him out, and led him by side-streets to the place
where stood the real statue. George was for looking at it and passing
on, as is his way with statues, but we insisted on his pulling up and
viewing the thing conscientiously. We walked him round that statue four
times, and showed it to him from every possible point of view. I think,
on the whole, we rather bored him with the thing, but our object was to
impress it upon him. We told him the history of the man who rode upon
the horse, the name of the artist who had made the statue, how much it
weighed, how much it measured. We worked that statue into his system. By
the time we had done with him he knew more about that statue, for the
time being, than he knew about anything else. We soaked him in that
statue, and only let him go at last on the condition that he would come
again with us in the morning, when we could all see it better, and for
such purpose we saw to it that he made a note in his pocket-b