Look, let’s just step back for one minute and consider, just consider, the possibility that I didn’t, in fact, steal this horse. Can you do that? Can you extend me the courtesy of not immediately jumping to the conclusion that I am, to use a selection of your own words, a horse snatcher? I can’t believe I actually have to say this. How would you feel, I wonder, if everything was reversed and you had turned up on my property and the first thing I said to you was, “hey, are you stealing my horse”? Quite frankly, I’d have a lot more right to be worried about people stealing my horses, considering I just have this one fella right here, whereas you have got loads of them. In terms of people who fit the usual profile of being a horse thief, I’d suggest that you are actually a much better match, given how many horses you have all about the place. It would be a pretty damning indictment of my abilities if I were the horse thief, given how few of them I’ve managed to acquire over the past eight or nine years.
Well, yes, of course, I have no doubt that you do, in fact, own all of these horses. Were it a more sociable hour, I might raise the tricky issue of whether or not it is possible to own something as carefree and enigmatic as a noble steed, but given the exact nature of our current stand-off, I can certainly understand why it might not be appropriate to go into that as a matter of priority. For what it’s worth, and then we’ll let the matter rest, I’ve often identified myself as being from the school of thought that says that the horse chooses the owner, but I do recognize that many other people prefer to rely more on legal documentation and its ilk. I just wish I had the legal documentation for Rose here with me, so that you could have a quick read of it, put that thing down and we could all be on our way back to our respective horseries.
Well, yes, of course I am aware that Rose is wearing a name tag. I hardly think she would have put that on herself without me noticing. No, I put that on her. I did it this morning like I do every morning, after breakfast, before the morning’s gym session. And I know straight away what you are going to say. You’re going to say that name tag doesn’t say Rose on it. Of course it doesn’t say Rose on it. I’m not an idiot. There are people out there that would steal a horse like this, you know. So what I do is I put a different name of her. Just any old name, like Trudy or Florence or, what, yes, Michael, as you correctly point out is the case here, to throw any would-be horse pilferers off the trail. “This horse is called Michael,” they’d said, to each other. “We’ve gone and got the wrong horse, lads,” one of the others might chip in, and then off they’d go, probably quite despondent about their perceived mistake. That way, I don’t need to be on my guard quite as much when Rose and I go out in public together. Just as I was doing tonight, when I accidentally got a bit lost and rode onto your property with her.
OK, I take your point. It isn’t really riding if you do it in a van. I just think of it as riding because I’m doing it with a horse in the back. I know it’s not conventional, but I think she actually prefers it. I mean, who wouldn’t? A lot easier than doing canters and things like that, wouldn’t you say? And you can see how relaxed she is. Completely out for the count. Never stirred even when there was all that shouting, or when you managed to hit my back tyres, or when I consequentially swerved right into this tree here.
Look, both of us are busy people, so I think we need to try as best as possible to resolve this dispute quickly, certainly before dawn. Obviously, you are quite attached to the idea that this is, in fact, not my horse. I’m a reasonable man. I’m willing to leave Rose in your custody until such a time as I can bring my documentation back with me. No problem there – it’s in my drawer in my horseowner’s office. I should be able to find it a bring it right over, within a week to ten days. But you need to help me out here. First of all, you need to flick that safety catch back on, and then the other men need to do the same. That’s my first request. My second, and final request, is that you let me leave, safely, right away, with my van. Now please let’s not waste time rehashing our earlier conversation on whether or not I have stolen this van. Clearly we are in disagreement on that issue as well and I think the only thing we can do is sort that out when I come back in a couple of weeks to discuss the horse. So, do we have a deal?
Nothing Rhymes, With Craig 