DOING EVEN THE DOERS. 35 S 



commission. I hope, nay I do not doubt, tliere are 

 many who would think that few such underhand 

 fellows as A. and B. are to be met with : this is, how- 

 ever, very wide of the fact : for the truth is, not only 

 are A. and B. to be met with, but we may go on to L., 

 and find personality to answer to each letter. This, 

 being about the middle of the alphabet, brings it to 

 what I say, that by letting buyers and sellers meet, 

 the salesman would lose half his commission : so the 

 man is obliged to give ambiguous and evasive an- 

 swers to prevent himself suffering from the meanness 

 and avarice of those from whom one might expect at 

 least fairness of conduct : but so in truth it is. 



Another trick is sometimes played a salesman. 

 Some fellow, half dealer and half gentleman, brings 

 three or four horses to a Repository for sale : he takes 

 care to ask such a price for his horses that it is next 

 to impossible for the salesman to sell them at it. If 

 he does happen to do so, well and good : in that case 

 he would get his commission ; indeed, he could not be 

 kept out of it : but at any thing like a fair price he 

 will not ; for it is managed in this way. The owner, 

 or his man, are one or the other constantly by the 

 side of the horses ; consequently not one can be shown 

 without those worthies knowing all about it. The 

 horse is liked, but the price asked by the salesman 

 precludes his being sold by him. But the owner gets 

 at the gentleman, who of course does not trouble 

 himself about the salesman's commission, and thus 

 buys the horse of the owner, who agrees to bring him 

 to the purchaser's stable ; he gets paid for him ; and 

 here again the salesman is done. If the owner thinks 

 there is a probability of his being found out at this, 

 all he does is to take his other horses somewhere else ; 



VOL. I. A A 



