THE GROOM 117 



we believe, has been choked off hunting by the over condition 

 of his horses. Some Grooms have but one system — the very 

 tip-top condition, good nerves, bad nerves, or no nerves at all. 

 First-rate, race-horse condition may be all very well for Sir 

 Rasper Smashgate, who rides fourteen stone, with the nerves 

 of a Roman gladiator, but for little Paul Poplin, it is nothing 

 short of cruelty to put him on an over fresh horse — cruelty 

 the most refined, for you make the poor victim pay for his 

 suffering. What can be more humiliating to a man of " taste, 

 enterprise, and spirit," as the old " Sporting Magazine " used 

 to put on its title page, than being hurried here, there, and 

 everywhere, knocked against gate-posts, dashed among trees, 

 bumped against acquaintance, by an impetuous, overbearing, 

 resolute horse, that the Groom has been coddling and spicing 

 for the show off on this particular day. Horrid reflection, 

 when there are five or six more waiting their turns to do the 

 same thing ! 



In hiring a Groom, as in buying a horse, it is very material 

 to see whether they are adapted to the work we intend to put 

 them to. Hunters are not like carriage or park horses, that 

 can be kept for show with impunity, and it is no use a man 

 hiring a Stud Groom and buying six or eight horses merely 

 because he happens to have plenty of money, when a less 

 aspiring servant, with fewer nags, would make him much more 

 comfortable. He had better lay his money out in plate, or in 

 some less troublesome article than hunters. He must not 

 mind being called shabby. Surely a man is not to make 

 himself miserable for the sake of being called liberal. Of 

 all charges that of shabbiness, " closeness," is the commonest 

 and easiest made. If a man's stomach is not equal to the 

 "drenching" dinner-giving entails, and he is sparing of his 

 feeds, he is called shabby. If he gives dinners and does not 

 push his wine, he is said to be trying to save it. If Dick 

 Sharpwit tries to do him with a horse, and fails, Dick dubs 



