178 SPORTING REMINISCENCES 



without bone or middle piece and a certain spurious 

 quality, principally due to their shaving, yet he 

 made them look so well that men who ought to 

 know better have bought them, to reflect bitterly 

 when the commoners did their high actioned best 

 for three or four miles, and then either rested in a 

 ditch or died away to a wide and crumbling canter. 

 Also the surprise of being regularly hunted is a 

 shock to those fattened up beasts. 



From another man I know you may get some- 

 thing unsound, but it will have been ridden hard 

 to hounds. You will see this dealer dashing 

 along three hundred pounds' worth as if twenty- 

 five compassed its value. Flash over gates, wire, 

 anything to be with hounds. 



We have an old dealer here who has bought 

 and sold more horses than perhaps any man in 

 the country. Ill luck has dogged him, and he is 

 a poor man now, ruined by taking to racing, but 

 in his day he has seen some big deals. 



He has got a particularly gentle low voice and 

 is deaf when it pleases him. 



Down at Listowel Fair one day he saw an old 

 gaunt horse dozing drearily in a doorway. " How 

 much ? " Jim queried. 



" Five pound." 



The old beast had points. "I'll give ye two." 



" I wouldn't wake him for that," growled the 

 owner proudly. 



At Puck Fair he spied a perfect skeleton coming 



