CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUXDE 269 



hounde laid it on so thick that Milksop, who was 

 most "jolly green," thought it useless asking if he 

 would sell such a piece of perfection. The conse- 

 quence was the Captain was obhged to throw out the 

 bait himself, a decidedly unskilful move in the grand 

 game of "do.'* However, there is no help for it, 

 where such verdancy does exist, and the Captain was 

 obliged, after sundry beatings about the bush, to put 

 it to Milksop rather pointedly " if he would not like 

 to have Lambkin ? " There are very few people who 

 can't take a good horse, the difficulty generally being 

 about pa\-ing for him ; but this did not seem to weigh 

 with ]SIr. Milksop, who merely said he would be glad 

 to take him — " take him,^^ just as he would take a hat 

 from a hatter, a pair of braces from a hosier, or a 

 waistcoat from his tailor. That fine, easy, Canta- 

 bridgian style of doing business not sounding at all 

 like money, and *' tick " being at aU times abhorrent 

 to the mind of our Captain — at least when he had to 

 give it — and dangerous in the extreme in a case like 

 the present, he let out at once that the price would be 

 a hundred and seventy-five guineas. 



Milksop didn't seem chagrined at all at the informa- 

 tion ; indeed, he rather looked upon the price as 

 complimentary to his judgment in horse-flesh, seeing 

 that he pronounced Lambkin first-rate, and he had 

 given a hundred and twenty for the horse he was on. 



We think the Captain showed great judgment, not 

 only in asking a high price, but in asking it in such 

 a way as to look as if he had measured the horse out 

 to the odd five guineas. Had he asked a hundred 

 and fifty or two hundred, it might haTe been regarded 

 as a mere random, oflT-hand, figure-of-speech sort of 

 price ; but a hundred and seventy-five guineas carried 

 considerate calculation on the face of iL Time was, 

 when gentlemen used not to think it right to offer 

 each other less for their horses than they asked — 

 they used to leave bartering and bargain-driving to 



