AN OCTOGENARIAN HORSEBREAKER. 459 



drawing; his chronometer from his fob with but little 

 less trouble than drawing a bucket from a well, he 

 announced that it was eleven o'clock, and drinking to 

 ' our next merry meeting,' and with regret that ' the 

 best o' friends must part, as the dog said when he 

 lost his tail,' dismissed the company home, to meet them 

 next morning, himself as fresh as a daisy and with a 

 joke on his lips, to the effect that he ' was dry, and 

 that if he had only known it over-night he would 

 then have taken enough to quench his insatiable 

 thirst.' 



I have naturally, perhaps, dwelt over the incidents 

 of an evening which was a memorable one to both of 

 us. The last time, I think, that I ever had the 

 pleasure of seeing my old friend w T as at his own 

 home, when lie was about eighty -one years old. And 

 at that age he had just mounted a colt which his 

 stud-groom, Spriggs, himself a man of sixty, was 

 eno-ao-ed in breaking. 



' The fact is,' said my veteran friend, ' Spriggs is 

 getting too old for it, and is afraid of the colt, who is 

 getting the mastery of him ; and unless I tackle him 

 at once, he (the colt) will be ruined.' 



However, after a bit he dismounted, and then told 

 me how his man had come to be unnerved. It 

 appeared that a two-year-old that I had sold to 

 Spriggs a few weeks before, had run away with him 

 from the top of a hill about a quarter of a mile off, 

 coming back to the stables. Unfortunately the gates 



