Mark Twain

A Horse's Tale Mark Twain

Although I have had several opportunities to see a bull-fight, I have never seen one; but I needed a bull-fight in this book, and a trustworthy one will be found in it. I got it out of John Hay's Castilian Days, reducing and condensing it to fit the requirements of this small story. Mr. Hay and I were friends from early times, and if he were still with us he would not rebuke me for the liberty I have taken. The knowledge of military minutiæ exhibited in this book will be found to be correct, but it is not mine; I took it from Army Regulations, ed. 1904; Hardy's Tactics-Cavalry, revised ed., 1861; and Jomini's Handbook of Military Etiquette, West Point ed., 1905. It would not be honest in me to encourage by silence the inference that I composed the Horse's private bugle-call, for I did not. I lifted it, as Aristotle says. It is the opening strain in The Pizzicato in Sylvia, by Delibes. When that master was composing it he did not know it was a bugle-call, it was I that found it out.