TAKING CAKE OF NUMBER ONE. 339 



place; should any stranger arrive, Meddler's mo- 

 desty will not prevent him making his acquaintance 

 and volunteering his services ; nor does he suffer a 

 fresh horse or two to enter the town without ascer- 

 taining all about them. Thus it is seen that nothing 

 of this sort can stir without his knowledge. Every- 

 one who knows him knows this, and therefore applies 

 to him for information and assistance, both of which 

 he can afford, and Avill if he is paid for it. This is 

 all fair enough we will say — " the labourer is worthy 

 of his hire," is an old saying, and quite a true one if 

 we apportion the hire to the services he renders us ; 

 but I will show where Mr. Meddler frequently is not 

 worthy of his hire. 



We ^vill suppose any one had applied to him to find 

 him a horse of a certain sort for a certain purpose. 

 Meddler knows one or two, as the case may be, exactly 

 suited to the purpose. Now the horse being so is 

 certainly a consideration with Meddler, but a very 

 secondary one. The first is to whom does the horse 

 belong^ and will he pay him for selling him for him as 

 much as he pleases to think he ought to get ? If "yes," 

 the purchaser is immediately taken to both horse and 

 owner : if " no," he will not be taken ; but, on the 

 contrary, if another, who Meddler knows will pay, has 

 a horse not half so well adapted to the purchaser's 

 views, to him he will be taken ; for, mind, being well 

 paid by one party will not suit Meddler : no, he must 

 be paid by both, and paid well. His business there- 

 fore is to take his employer where he can do the best 

 for himself, not where he can do best for the employer ; 

 and thus he is not always the safest gentleman in the 

 world to trust to. I have rarely employed one of 



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