CHAPTER X 



THE GROOM 



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V>-— <i''*5&' 



half the fellows calling 

 themselves " Grooms " were 

 in their proper places, how 

 well the pigs would be at- 

 tended to ! 



Were it not for the in- 

 consistency of the thing, it 

 would say much for the 

 confiding innocence of hu- 



man nature, and confidence 

 in mankind, that while some 

 men try, and pause, and deliberate, and hesitate, and call in 

 friends, and, lastly, veterinary surgeons, to examine a horse 

 ere they buy him, they yet can hire a Groom with often- 

 times no recommendation but the fellow's own. It never 

 seems to strike some men that a horse is a horse, or only 

 half a horse, according to the manner in which he is kept — 

 that you may make one and the same animal two perfectly 

 different creatures, by good grooming and bad ; na\-, that you 

 may even keep a groggy, half worn out horse on his legs by 

 dint of condition and management. Grooms are as various 

 as geraniums or dahlias — they are of all sorts, from the Stud- 



