ECCENTRICITY OF OWNERS. 213 



say, although he did not back his charges with argument, 

 except in one instance, when as might be expected, his 

 reasoning was weak. The oats were inferior he said ; and 

 when asked the cause of the inferiority declared that they 

 were new. Now oats in the month of April I consider not 

 only good but preferable to those kept, as he said his always 

 were, until they have seen two Christmas days. Indeed, 

 if they have not been eaten before that period, very few 

 will be after ; for they would most surely smell disagreeably 

 and be refused by the horses. His presumption was con- 

 siderable when he stated that he could tell old oats from 

 new by seeing a few in the manger ; but it did not equal 

 his lack of veracity in his report of his visit, which was 

 literally beneath contempt. 



I have no wish to overstate the case, or to add a word 

 incapable of proof, in demonstrating the harm done by the 

 tattle (if it be not worse) of friendly busybodies. But that 

 the evil exists the following will prove : — 



So long as certain gentlemen ran their horses in my name 

 and their own was a well-kept secret, matters went smoothly ; 

 but so surely as they substituted their own names, things went 

 wrong. If they won, they ought, it was said, to have won 

 more. Absurd as it may appear, this was actually said to 

 me by a nobleman after winning a large stake ; as though 

 I were the keeper of his purse-strings ! If, on the other 

 hand, they were beat, it was the most extraordinary thing 

 in the world. Beat and beat again ! there was no end to 

 it ! The trial must have been wrong ; the race must have 

 been wrong : in fact, the whole business was wrong, and 

 there must be an explanation of it. All that before was 

 so correct and pleasant, is suddenly transformed to the 

 very opposite. Yet there had been no change of management. 



