HORSEMANSHIP 109 



expense of his relations, and emigrated to 

 America, where it was generally felt that he 

 might enjoy a wider field of operations and one 

 better suited to his peculiar gifts. 



He is now employed as a book-agent by an 

 American publishing firm which makes a speci- 

 ality of supplying polyglot Bibles to illiterate 

 persons of colour; but after office hours his old 

 passion for horseflesh reasserts itself, and on 

 Saturday afternoons he habitually drives a hearse 

 for a well-known Virginian undertaker. Indeed, 

 the last I heard of him was to the effect that he had 

 been arrested by the police of Wiggsville, Va., and 

 fined five dollars for racing another hearse down 

 the principal thoroughfare of that thriving city. 



Driving is an accomplishment for which most 

 people consider themselves to be naturally well 

 equipped — a pursuit in which they would in- 

 dignantly repudiate the need of instruction. 

 One may nevertheless afiirm, without fear of 

 contradiction, that eight out of every ten per- 

 sons who attempt to indulge in this fascinating 

 pastime are ignorant of the very rudiments of 

 the art, and quite unfit to be entrusted with 

 a pair of reins. 



It is not sufficient to mount the box-seat of 



