THE SQUIRE 213 



due allowance for time and peculiarity of situation, 

 also for the operation of the reciprocity system. It 

 is a very different thing taking a friend's horse in 

 over night, and a string of horses coming for a month. 

 In the one case the accommodation is great to the 

 sender, and the expense is nothing to the receiver ; 

 added to which, if a sportsman, he will have a billet 

 for his horse on the other side of the country, but it 

 would be an awful tax upon the owner of a house in 

 a good hunting country if he was expected to take 

 in the studs of all the friends that the fame of the 

 country might draw within its limits. 



A place in a country Squire's house is generally 

 looked upon by servants as the best situation. In 

 them there is that proper personal inspection by 

 the heads of the establishment that no really honest 

 servant will ever object to, while there is none of that 

 currying favour with upper servants incident to the 

 steward's room of great houses. Our papers on " The 

 Groom " drew from a subscriber in Paris, who states 

 himself to be an " Old Stableman," a letter approving 

 of our " hints," but wishing we had given the masters 

 a few as well as the men, and among others he drew 

 our attention to the fact that a " talking servant" will 

 frequently command a place to the exclusion of the 

 quiet, hard-working man. He certainly admits that 

 the persons who hire such are " simpletons," but the 

 tongue is such a deceitful, seductive instrument, that 

 we fear what he says is too true, especially with young 

 men of large fortune. Much as we are all disposed 

 to repudiate the idea of a talking servant, often as 

 the impolicy of trusting to them is exposed, still there 

 is a something about the plausible subtlety of the 

 tongue that beguiles us when the rule comes to 

 direct application. So with persons dealing largely 

 in promises and professions : as a general rule, we 

 know they are always to be suspected, yet when the 

 professions come to be made to ourselves, we are 



