290 In Scarlet and Silk 



weight hunter for five years — though I own 

 to her having given me fourteen falls the first 

 season ; the best timber-jumper I ever rode 

 I bought for thirty ; and I remember Captain 

 Simpson, E.A., picking up a mare (as a four- 

 year-old) at Tattersall's for twenty guineas, 

 on which I have seen him successful in three 

 or four Point to Point races, and she was also 

 an extraordinarily good hunter. In this case, 

 however, she owed all her education to her 

 buyer's bold and clever handling. One has 

 only to pause and think a bit to be able to 

 give a score or more of such cases occurring 

 within one's own experience. One I bought 

 out of a London hansom ; another that had 

 been running in a 'bus ; both turned out 

 good hunters, though the "cabman" was 

 awfully hot with hounds. 



At a somewhat early period of my life I 

 was possessed by what I can only now call an 

 unaccountable craze for hunting thoroughbred 

 weeds. In fact, I never felt so happy as when 

 I had acquired some shadowy-looking wretch 

 out of a selling race or training stable, with a 



