67 



coming from Reading, but the horse is none the 

 worse for it, I am sm'e." 



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 unblemished price ; but the further investi- 

 gation 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 respects, 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 effrontery, that "he blemished 

 himself in leaping a gate;" "he got loose last 

 night in the stable, 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 ! 



It is obviously impossible to explain, to an inex- 

 perienced man, all the symptoms of unsoundness. 

 f2 



