ABOUT BUYING A HORSE. 5 



isn't a hunter. Get credit for being able to go over a seven- 

 barred gate, because no one has ever seen you do anything 

 to prove you couldn't. Think it out. 



" Ah ! " says Gloppin, not paying any attention to these 

 remarks (another peculiarity of Gloppin's, and of sporting 

 men, who like to ride rough-shod over you), " you ride about 

 fifteen stun, I suppose ? " 



He speaks of me as if I were a sack of coals. Only that's 

 "ton" not "stun." {Note. — Arrange this for a bon-7not of 

 U'Orsay's — make him say that he'd invite a coalheaver to 

 dinner because he was a man of ton. Think this well out.] 

 I knew he was coming to a delicate subject. He might just 

 as well have kept this till afterwards. 



Happy Thought. — Deny my weight. I donH ride what he 

 calls " fifteen stun." By the way, is a stun a stone, or isn't 

 stun something to do with wine measure ? 



Safest, when uncertain about a sporting word or its 

 meaning, to pronounce it as he does. It strikes me, as a 

 note for Vol. XV., letter E, on Equestrianism, suddenly, how 

 ignorant one is upon most matters of weight. How much is 

 a stun ? Is it twenty hundred- weight or not ? Not, I should 

 say, because fifteen times twenty would be three hundred, 

 and I can't weigh three hundred hundred-weight. Let me 

 recall, while Gloppin is measuring me with his eye to 

 discover exactly what I do weigh, let me recall my Tables. 

 [Hamlet passim, " my tables ! " " Four quarters make a 

 hundred-weight." What quarters ? What measure is this ? 

 Riding measure ? . . . Make another note to look all this out, 



