Why, sir," he continued, with a touch of excitement, "I
think a man would be ashamed to feel that he was making himself lower
than the horses he had to do with."
Allis looked grateful. Even Porter turned half about in his chair, and
gazed with a touch of wonderment at the battered young man who had
substituted common sense for sophistical reasoning.
The reverend gentleman frowned. "It's not the horses at all," he said,
"it's the men who are disreputable."
Mrs. Porter gave a little warning cough. In his zealousness Mr. Dolman
might anger her husband, then his logic would avail little.
"The men are like the horses," commented Porter, "some bad and some
good. They average about the same as they do in anything else, mostly
good, I think. Of course, when you get a bad one he stands out and
everybody sees him"
"And sometimes horses--and men, too, I suppose--get a bad name when they
don't deserve it," added Allis. "Everybody says Lauzanne is bad, but I
know he's not."
"That was a case of this dreadful dishonesty," said Mrs. Porter,
speaking hastily. She turned in an explanatory way to Crane. "You know,
Mr. Crane, last summer a rascally man sold my husband a crooked horse.
Now, John, what are you laughing at?" for her husband was shaking in his
chair.
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