POINT DE GIBIER, JE VOUS REMERCIE. 341 



many a good horse is lost by people attending to such 

 fellows. If Mr. Meddler would content himself with 

 taking any person to a dealer's yard when he knew 

 he had a horse in his stables to suit the customer, the 

 dealer would of course be very happy to see him, and 

 would pay him handsomely for his trouble : but there 

 is something in forced interference repugnant to one's 

 feelings, even when no harm is meant. I think a 

 pheasant kept to a day, and done to a turn, a capital 

 thing : but I know I should kick confoundedly if a 

 man attempted to ram a leg down my throat, drum- 

 stick and all ; so, though the dealer would willingly 

 pay any meddler for what he sold for him, he does 

 not wish to give him the command over all the horses 

 in his stable, and a feeling in every one sold from 

 them : but this is what Meddler wants, and therefore 

 will, and does, in some way abuse every horse attempted 

 to be sold without his interference : in fact, he wants 

 to trade on the dealer's capital, and have a certain 

 share in the profits of each horse, though on an aver- 

 age he is only the means of selling one in ten. The 

 consequence would virtually be, that the dealer must 

 wait till Mr. Meddler sold his horses for him, or give 

 him a feeling in any one he takes the unwarrantable 

 liberty of selling himself. Bravo, Mr. Meddler! a 

 very modest way of constituting a little partnership, 

 for it amounts to that. This I rather think is a little 

 more than the dealer can afford : it is an attempt to 

 make him swallow the pheasant's leg with a venge- 

 ance ! But if he refuses so large a morsel, he may 

 fully calculate on Meddler's using his most strenuous 

 eiForts to (as he would term it) choke off every cus- 

 tomer that enters the yard. One plan would be this. 



I have said he is always hanging about to see what is 



z 3 



