PURCHASE AND PRELIMINARIES 



recited at family reunions on Thanksgiving and 

 Christmas, was a regular daredevil in her salad 

 days, and still has fancies for the flowing tails and 

 arching necks that used to look so well on sofa 

 cushion and sampler ; the news spreads through- 

 out the family that Henry is about to buy a horse, 

 and accordingly Henry, after much reflection as 

 to how that act will affect him with regard to his 

 business associates and social intimates, prepares 

 for the fatal plunge. 



Right here is where Mr. Neophyte accumulates 

 a cargo of trouble that would stagger a dromedary 

 if he does not, once and forever, cast grandmas, 

 aunts, cousins, friends and all, into the outer dark- 

 ness. A man's wife and his horse are two acquisitions 

 which he must choose for himself; and he who tries 

 to please every one will end by displeasing them as 

 well as himself. He will have been told blood- 

 curdlingtales of the duplicity andchicanery of horse- 

 dealers, and of the treacherous and evil disposition 

 of horses; and he enters upon his quest with 

 much the same feeling that surges in the breast 

 of a twentieth-century society girl on her first 

 slumming expedition, prepared to be dreadfully 

 shocked, and finally disappointed that the incidents 

 and surroundings are common-place after all. 



3 



