ne T^r otter, 119 



to what you thought of his purchases 3 and now and then, if I 

 happened " to beggar my looks, and hint something not very com- 

 pHmentary," he always had his answer ready, "Well, I dare say I 

 was a fool to buy it 5 but I think I know a bigger fool to whom I 

 think I can sell it again." He did not, however, confine his little 

 speculations alone to such things as he could carry on his coach. If 

 he by a chance saw a promising colt or a likely-looking heifer 

 grazing by the road side, he never forgot it, and if it was for sale he 

 generally, sooner or later, managed to find a customer for it. Many 

 a time have I known him pall up at the gate of a field by the 

 roadside, hand me over the ribbons, and leisurely walk down the field 

 to inspect some animal or other he fancied would suit him. We 

 never passed through a toll-bar but some rough rider was waiting 

 to show him a raw colt, some farmer to talk to him about a 

 bullock, or some old woman with a basket of geese, poultry, or 

 eggs. He was a great horse dealer in a small way 5 and as he 

 worked best part of the ground himself, was always shoving 

 some new purchase or other into the team, which certainly had 

 no business there. He was always chopping out and in 5 and 

 not a team on. tlie whole journey, except the first two and the 

 two last, could be said to be properly matched. In vain did strange 

 passengers grumble at all this (as for his regular passengers, we all 

 knew the old man's little foibles too well ever to say a word) 3 he 

 was incorrigible, and this I think the reader will admit, when I 

 mention two circumstances which fell under my own observation. 

 We were coming up one day after a large Midland fair, and for 

 half the journey, when we had a team which he dare trust in my 

 hands, the old boy gave me the reins while he got inside to have a 

 little bit of loo with three horse-dealing friends. And on another 

 occasion, when some leather plating stakes were being run for in a 

 park which we had to pass by, he coolly drew his coach into the 

 park, saw one race run, then drove out again, and resumed his 

 journey. 



There was a standing joke against him, that he once bought 

 three live pigs somewhere down the road, shoved them into the 



