THE GROOM 145 



fret by cantering past them in scarlet. A Groom 

 should never calculate on doing more than five miles 

 an hour in going to cover. Some horses will go six 

 comfortably, but five is about the pace. The first 

 thing he should do on arriving, of course, is to get 

 his horse into a stable or outhouse, where with the 

 aid of a little clean straw and a stable towel, he will 

 remove the mud sparks from the horse's legs and 

 renovate the polish of the bits, buckles, and stirrups. 

 A damp morning soon clouds the steel. It is these 

 trifles that mark the difference between the Groom 

 with the head from the one without. Some men 

 seem to think if they start fair and clean, or are neat 

 and clean, once a-day, that is all that can be required 

 of them, and that they may get themselves, their 

 horses, and all about them, dirty, tarnished, and 

 daubed, without any reflection on their care and 

 neatness. "They have got dirtied since they came 

 out," they say. A neat servant not only avoids all 

 collision, but removes little casualties as they occur. 

 There is a wide difference between a neat man and 

 a smart man. The neat man is always neat whatever 

 he has on, the smart man is often the creature of 

 the moment that degenerates into the carelessness of 

 the sloven after a flourish. 



Lying out over night and mixing in the tap-room 

 society of stable-yards, is a sad trial for servants, and 

 the less a master throws them into that sort of tempta- 

 tion the better. It is not only the drinking, swearing, 

 and gambling that not unfrequently goes on, but 

 tricks are taught that often prove the ruin of lads ; 

 charging for things they never get, putting down 

 more than they pay, and various other devices that 

 all sooner or later end in ruin. Servants who wish 

 to do justice to themselves and their masters, should 

 never pay anything without getting a bill of particulars 

 and a receipt. They then can send them in along 

 with their books, and if wrong is done, the master 



