192 HE'LL DO IN TIME. 



pleasure of making money ; and he continues to spe- 

 culate with success. Hitherto he has done nothing 

 wrong: his horses have all turned out as he repre- 

 sented them. He now, however, happens unfortu- 

 nately to get a horse not quite what he should be. 

 What is he to do with him ? Is he to sell him at a 

 loss ? A very short time ago he would have done 

 so ; but now the itch for making money has taken 

 too firm a hold of him. He enters into a kind of 

 compromise with his conscience, and the horse has 

 really perhaps nothing material the matter with him. 

 He avails himself of his position in society, and sells 

 him, on his word, as a perfectly sound horse. If he 

 prove otherwise, he does not allow he had been guilty 

 of a deception, but pledges his word of honour that 

 he was sound with him and when he sold him. This 

 closes the transaction. Having thus escaped with 

 impunity, instead of taking it as a salutary warning 

 of the danger of such transactions having once 

 been guilty of a dereliction of honour and integrity, 

 he goes on till he unblushingly (in dealers' phrase) 

 sticks a screw into a friend whenever he can find an 

 opportunity. This is about a fair sample of the usual 

 career of those who commence privately dealing in 

 horses. It is a pursuit that every gentleman should 

 avoid. It is as demoralising in its influence on the 

 mind, and eventually as fatal in its effects as to cha- 

 racter, as is the pursuit of the professed gambler and 

 black-leg. " All fair in horse- dealing " is an idea that 

 some persons profess. It is a very erroneous one. It is 

 an idea that no sensible or honourable man can seriously 

 entertain. There is no more excuse for premeditated 

 deception in the sale of a horse than there is in any 



