6o OCCASIONAL HAPPY THOUGHTS. 



eyes, whether everything is going on in a straightforward 

 manner or not. 



I am inclined to think everything is 7iot quite straight- 

 forward, and have a vague idea of being done by Clumber, 

 Spoker, and the Squinting Groom, who, I fancy (it's only 

 fancy) are all " standing in." 



" A be-auty," repeats Clumber, apparently so rapt in the 

 contemplation of the animal's perfections as to be lost in an 

 ecstasy, and to be rather delivering himself of a soliloquy, 

 than addressing anyone of whose presence he is at all con- 

 scious. " A little 'orse like her ain't to be met with every 

 day of the week ; no, nor yet in a whole year, go all over 

 England and give what you like for 'em. She's a little 'orse 

 as don't mind work, — the more the work, the better she does 

 it, — and a free goer as it's quite a pleasure to see along the 

 road. None of your dancing-master toe-and-trip-up ; no, 

 but a good flat, firm, light, and yet-as-you-may-say, solid 

 tread, that don't come down in the same place as where it 

 went up, but takes you over the ground, and ull do her four- 

 teen mile an hour in a dog-cart any day, with a fair countr}-. 

 Why, she's as high-couraged as a thoroughbred," he says, 

 as if he was anticipating some objection, which, perhaps, he 

 thought I looked as if I were going to make — not that I have 

 been able at present to collect any definite ideas on the 

 subject, except that I am still haunted by the one notion 

 that I am being done — that Clumber is doing me, and that 

 Spoker and the Groom is " standing in," and secretly 

 taking a lesson in the art of selling a horse from Clumber^ 

 to whose speech they listened with undisguised admiration. 



