78 THE ADVENTURES OF A GENTLEMAN 



" Well ; I believe there was a little mishap coming 

 from Reading, but the horse is none the worse for it, 

 I am sure." 



The man lied still ; the accident was at least three 

 or four months old ; and he had doubtless bought the 

 horse as a blemished horse, to sell him at an unblem- 

 ished price ; but the further investigation would have 

 profited little, either to me or him, so I left him to 

 himself, to chew the cud on his loss of a customer. 

 I was so well satisfied with the horse in other res- 

 pects, that had he frankly told me the truth, and 

 asked a price in proportion to the defect, I should 

 have bought him. 



In many similar instances, I have been told, with 

 unblushing efi'rontery, that " he blemished himself in 

 leaping a gate ;" "he got loose last night in the sta- 

 ble, and rubbed the hair off:" "he ran in the dark 

 against a barrow that an old fish-woman had left in 

 the gateway;" to which my reply has uniformly been 

 a philippic against drunken ostlers and careless fish- 

 fags, with regret that such a valuable horse should 

 be spoilt for sale. I recommend equal prudence to 

 my reader ; it will save him from buying a bad horse, 

 and not less from a nuisance only second in degree, 

 a personal squabble with a detected horse-dealer ! 



