144 THE HI NTIXG FIELD 



in the black coat and waistcoat, all creases and whitening, 

 from kicking about in the saddle room since the " last day," 

 with a button ofl" one, and a button out of the other leather 

 breeches knee, the top-boots pulled up as high as ever he can 

 get them, and the ends of a dirty twisted white neckcloth flying 

 out at either side of a half-buttoned straggling waistcoat. The 

 fellow looks as if he had slept in his clothes, or put them on in 

 the dark, so hurried anil ill arranged is he. He has heard that 

 long-tops are the " go," so he has got them extra length, and 

 daubed them so with putty powder, that if it was to come a 

 shower of rain he would be the same colour from the knee to the 

 heel. There is a generous supply of mud about his ankles, 

 almost enough to constitute a forty shilling freeholder. 



This great hulking, ill-countenanced fellow, on the badl 



clipped rat tail, is what may be called a register-office servant 

 — a fellow that is generally on the books, and gets taken up 

 at short notice, in extremities. He is a sour-tempered, ill- 

 conditioned fellow, who can only conduct himself decently for 

 one month after being ground down In' poverty and adversit}' 

 for six. He is now a helper, and takes his master's horse to 

 cover, though weighing three stone more than his master. 

 When he applies for another situation he will dub himself 

 "Pad Groom," or "Second Horseman," despite that he stands 

 six feet high, with the brawn}' limbs of a bargeman. The 

 register-office will endorse him as such, and there is no saying 

 but b}' mere dint of impudence and want of contradiction, 

 some flat may be taken in to hiring him — Second Horseman ! 

 — second ploughman, more like. What a ragged-looking 

 rascal it is to send to cover. How an3-body dare trust such a 

 fellow with a twenty pound horse we can't conceive. If the 

 horse patrol were to catch him near London, they would be 

 sure to take him up for stealing it. There is something 

 terribly self-convicting about a job-servant. Seed)-, but pain- 



