CAPTAIN SHABBYHOUNDE 277 



dered, broken-down rip of a brute to him ! He didn't 

 'orse a coach ! He didn't keep a cab ! 



Poor Job Tod, the spectral groom, had lived in 

 many bad places, and had had too many blowings-up 

 and blackguardings to care much about one now, so 

 finding he had got to his customer, he sought the 

 ostler, who conducted him to Mr. Milksop's stable, 

 where, notwithstanding Mr. Strutt's asseverations that 

 he would not receive the horse without his pedigree, 

 warranty, and we don't know what else, he nevertheless 

 let the second horseman lead him quietly in. Strutt's 

 bumptious, inflated, cock-sparrow manner — his full 

 rubicund face and boisterous action, contrasted with 

 the lean, haggard, pensive looks of the ill-fed, ill-paid 

 stranger, whose wrinkled, cadaverous cheeks were 

 innocent of colour, whose old, misfitting clothes hung 

 on him like sacks, and whose short parchment-looking 

 leathers and tightly-pulled up boots, were a world too 

 wide for his shrunk shanks. The poor creature did 

 not look as if he had had a good meal for a month, 

 and most likely he had not ; for the Captain gave 

 him but twelve shillings a-week, and he had himself, 

 a wife, and three small children to keep out of it. 

 How meek, passive poverty is imposed upon in this 

 world ! And yet the poor creature was faithful, faith- 

 ful even to the Captain — early and late at his stable, 

 careful and patient with his horses, attentive to the 

 last comer as to the first ; his regard for the animal 

 seemed to extend to the whole equine generation. 



The Captain w^as not the man to tell his right hand 

 what his left hand did; but if he had, we really 

 believe he might have trusted Job Tod. He would 

 have kept his secret. Indeed, nature seemed to have 

 meant Job for the secret service department : for if 

 ever there was a silent, uncommunicative, monosyl- 

 labic creature, it was Tod. "Yes" or "No" seems 

 to constitute the stock of his vocabulary. Honest 

 as Aristides, and always as poor ; patient, attentive. 



