100 THE LIFE OF A KACEHORSK 



of disposing of more vermin in several seconds less than any 

 linown animal of his weight within the belt of merry England. 

 As a sporting character, Jemmy Clever shone with the effulgence 

 of a planet among the stars of lesser magnitude, and the lustre 

 became greatly augmented upon its becoming known that he 

 was now the ostensible owner of Sheet Anchor. 



Although friendless and forgotten, it is far from my desire 

 to make a single enemy ; and therefore in stating that, after my 

 sale, I was moved to a fourth-rate training stable, within less 

 than thirty miles of the metropolis, and somewhat notorious for 

 tricks and devices of a truly objectionable kind, I shall not par- 

 ticularise the locality by name. It was a beautiful spot, with hill 

 and dale, slope and level, stretching far away in the distance, 

 and a trout stream, winding its serpentine course through a 

 valley of green pastures, threw back the silvery light reflected 

 upon its surface, as far as the eye could reach. A roadside inn, 

 with the sign of the George and the Dragon, almost effaced by 

 time and the seasons, and creaking harshly upon its rusty hinge, 

 as it swung to and fro in the wind, was situated in front of the 

 long row of buildings forming the stables, the close proximity of 

 which accounted, perhaps, for the strong effluvia of beer and 

 tobacco invariably accomjianying the presence of my new 

 attendant. Jack Swiggle. A precocious youth was Jack 

 Swiofole, and a wicked and mischievous one withal. He 

 appeared, indeed, never happy or mentally at rest unless in 

 the active performance of an important something he ought not 

 to do, or committing the equally passive error of leaving undone 

 that which ranked itself among the foremost of his moral obliga- 

 tions. A lean, stunted boy, with a pale and generally begrimed, 

 gin-and-water, pimply countenance, was Jack Swiggle, and 

 among the fixed rules which he observed with unexceptionable 

 strictness, I remarked that he never changed his shirt. About 

 his neck, but not so as to conceal any portion of it, he wore a 

 fiery-red cravat : upon his head a close-fitting cloth cap, the 

 front of which was always pulled down upon his eyebrows : a 

 long-waisted linen jacket, capacious corduroy breeches, with 

 leggings to match, and a more correct portrait of Jack Swiggle 



