314 TACT. 



little out of the crowd : Gentleman thinks it very 

 natural the dealer may not wish everybody to know 

 all about his horse (Mem. dealers have a great many 

 little natural ways with them.) Gentleman will, how- 

 ever, find there is more of the natural in himself than 

 in the dealer. Now, the Gentleman is quite right in 

 supposing it was not wished that every one should 

 hear the conversation; but the dealer's motive for 

 this was somewhat different from what it was thought 

 to be. It was this : he did not know who might be in 

 the crowd perhaps some persons well known to his 

 customer ; and then, if things went wrong, they might 

 be brought forward as witnesses of what dealer had 

 said about the horse. For this reason he is taken out of 

 the way ; and Rascal is kept in the way as a witness 

 on dealer's side : so the Gentleman by these means 

 can bring no witness if he wants one to swear the 

 truth, while the dealer has one to swear any lies he 

 may dictate for him. I will venture to assert, that in 

 nineteen cases out of twenty, where a gentleman is 

 dealing for a horse in any public place, let him turn 

 round, and he will see some Mr. Rascal-looking fellow 

 on the listen ; and he may depend upon it he is there 

 for the purpose I have stated. This is only one of 

 their little naturel ways of managing things. I have 

 my little natural ways too ; and one of them is, always 

 to get out of the way of one of these gratuitous listen- 

 ers ; and, under such circumstances, my reader will 

 do well to get into the way of doing the same thing. 



Having said something of these sort of gentry's 

 mode of buying and selling, there is another part of 

 their vocation to be spoken of: this is chopping, or 

 swapping. Now, in good round terms, let me give 

 my reader one bit of advice NEVER SWAP WITH A 



