44 THE POCKET AND THE STUD. 



as Mr. Searle doubtless is, seeing me a Mr. Green 

 he would make me pay a pretty price, well know- 

 ing, at the same time, it would be about as useful 

 to me as a pair of dancing boots to a whale, and 

 that the chances would be ten to one but that I 

 upset it the moment I got into it, thus reversing 

 the boat and the order of things at the same time ; 

 I underneath, the boat playing leap-frog over me 

 a kind of aquatic pastime I should possibly not 

 have the opportunity of repeating. Serve me 

 right ! What business should I have buying 

 boats? Now if I wanted some such water- 

 machine, and had sense enough to depute some 

 friend conversant with such matters to get me 

 one, I doubt not but he would have sense enough 

 to get me a good-sized flat bottomed punt, that I 

 could shove about and sit or stand in at my ease, 

 like a bear on a timber-float, a passenger who not 

 unfrequently makes use of such a mode of transit 

 in the far West. 



There are few of my readers, I dare say, who 

 could be induced to think that in purchasing 

 horses they are in about the same situation as I 

 should be in going to boat market. Such how- 

 ever, is the case with very many of my acquaint- 

 ances; they do not certainly, run the risk of 

 being upset in a river, but their pockets get upset 

 to a certainty, and sometimes both their vehicles 

 and bodies also ; the only difference being, that 

 these occurrences take place on dry land. 



