to myself is this; I will leave him.  Turning towards him, I said, I feared I should be late for breakfast, and must therefore bid him good morning.  Mohawk felt the pressure of my knees, and away we went at a slapping pace.  I congratulated myself on conquering my own curiosity, and on avoiding that of my travelling companion.  This, I said to myself, this is the value of a good horse; I patted his neck—­I felt proud of him.  Presently I heard the steps of the unknown’s horse—­the clatter increased.  Ah, my friend, thought I, it won’t do; you should be well mounted if you desire my company; I pushed Mohawk faster, faster, faster—­to his best.  He outdid himself; he had never trotted so handsomely—­so easily—­so well.

I guess that is a pretty considerable smart horse, said the stranger, as he came beside me, and apparently reined in, to prevent his horse passing me; there is not, I reckon, so spry a one on my circuit.

Circuit, or no circuit, one thing was settled in my mind; he was a Yankee, and a very impertinent Yankee, too.  I felt humbled, my pride was hurt, and Mohawk was beaten.  To continue this trotting contest was humiliating; I yielded, therefore, before the victory was palpable, and pulled up.  Yes, continued he, a horse of pretty considerable good action, and a pretty fair trotter, too, I guess.  Pride must have a fall—­I confess mine was prostrate in the dust.  These words cut me to the heart.  What! is it come to this, poor Mohawk, that you, the admiration of all but the envious, the great Mohawk, the standard by which all other horses are measured—­trots next to Mohawk, only yields to Mohawk, looks like Mohawk—­that you are, after all, only a counterfeit, and pronounced by a straggling Yankee to be merely ‘a pretty fair trotter!’ If he was trained, I guess that he might be made do a little more.  Excuse me, but if you divide your weight between the knee and the stirrup, rather most on the knee, and rise forward on the saddle, so as to leave a little daylight between you and it, I hope I may never ride this circuit again, if you don’t get a mile more an hour out of him.  What! not enough, I mentally groaned, to have my horse beaten, but I must be told that I don’t know how to ride him; and that, too, by a Yankee—­Aye, there’s the rub—­a Yankee what?  Perhaps a half-bred puppy, half Yankee, half Blue Nose.  As there is no escape, I’ll try to make out my riding master.  Your circuit, said I, my looks expressing all the surprise they were capable of—­your circuit, pray what may that be?  Oh, said he, the eastern circuit—­I am on the eastern circuit, sir.  I have heard, said I, feeling that I now had a lawyer to deal with, that there is a great deal of business on this circuit—­pray, are there many cases of importance?  There is a pretty fair business to be done, at least there has been, but the cases are of no great value—­we do not make much out of them, we get them up very easy, but they don’t bring much profit.  What a beast, thought I, is this; and what a curse to a country, to have such an unfeeling pettifogging rascal practising in it—­a horse jockey, too—­what a finished character!  I’ll try him on that branch of his business.