112 PRECEPT AND PRACTICE. 



wishes the floor, like that of the stage, had trap-doors 

 in it for his particular use and convenience. 



Now, a man going for the first time to a fair is, 

 mutatis mutandis, in the same category of non- 

 habitues. It may be said with truth a man requires 

 no usage de theatre, no knowledge of the intricacies 

 of the quadrille, no knowledge of the thousand and 

 one acts that show a man to be, or not to be, accus- 

 tomed to refined society, to enable him to go to a fair 

 to buy a horse or horses : doubtless it does not ; but 

 even here the feeling that he is under the eyes of 

 others prevents his being at his ease. 



We will suppose he drives there in his gig. For 

 the last two or three miles before he comes to the 

 town the cottagers by the wayside are out to see 

 "who goes to the fair ;" yelping curs, disturbed by 

 the unwonted traffic on the road, assail the wheels of 

 his vehicle ; little urchins halloo or hurrah as each 

 passes them, or run by its side tumbling heels over 

 head, in hopes of some halfpence being thrown them ; 

 carts, freighted with country lasses and their friends, 

 letum the huzzas sent after them with doable interest; 



