CHAPTER X. 



BUYING AT AUCTION. 



T}| E case for the hireling having been put, the question 

 of purchase comes next, and here the field is a wide 

 one, involving all sorts of conditions. Thus the rich 

 novice who intends to hunt several days a week has 

 merely to place an order with a dealer, or with some 

 reliable commission agent, and in all probability he 

 will secure three or four useful, handy mounts if he buys 

 a dozen horses. But these hints Jare not written alto- 

 gether for the benefit of wealthy men, to whom it is of 

 small moment whether a loss is made on any particular 

 horse ; they are more particularly intended, to help the 

 modest beginner, who purposes to take the field — at 

 first, at all events — with a single horse, or two at most. 

 And though hiring at first has been strongly recom- 

 mended, it must be borne in mind that nine men out of 

 ten would sooner hunt their own than other people's 

 horses, and even the beginner who makes his debut 

 on a horse from the livery stables will after a while 

 wish to possess a horse of his own. If he is wise he 

 will stick to the hireling during his novitiate, jobbing a 

 horse v/hich he likes and can ride comfortably by the 

 month or the season, but if at the end of this period 



