354 SCANNING A NEW FACE. 



SO even Nickein is done sometimes. It may be said 

 no one pities him, nor do I, for he does other people 

 often enough ; but it accounts for why a salesman, 

 whether a rogue or a respectable man, evades letting 

 people into the knowledge of to whom horses belong ; 

 and tliis is all I intended to do. 



We will now return to the suj^posed case of a 

 horse being sent to Nickem to sell. The reader must 

 bear in mind that we are now sending him to a man 

 who, from the moment any horse comes into his 

 clutches, sets out with the determination to get all 

 that can fairly, or unfairly, be got out of him for his 

 own benefit ; and to do Nickem justice, he is no petty- 

 larceny rogue ; he will not descend to rob your horse, 

 though he will ascend pretty high in the scale of in- 

 genuity to rob you. Now there is no great ingenuity 

 in robbing in a common vulgar way ; but to rob so 

 as to avoid suspicion, and even to induce your victim 

 to return and be robbed again, requires no little tact; 

 and this is Nickem's/or^^. 



If (which is the general mode) a horse is sent to 

 a repository by a servant, with a note stating his 

 particulars and price, the first thing Nickem does 

 is to cast an eye on him, to judge a little what 

 degree of trouble he is worth ; that is, not whether 

 lie is to be treated better or worse, but what quantum 

 of chicanery it seems probable it will be worth while 

 to employ against him, or rather his master. If a 

 common twenty or twenty-five pound brute, that is 

 about worth the money asked and no more, he is 

 merely put up in the stable, takes his chance of sale 

 (and he really gets a chance), for Nickem would say 

 of him in reference to his not coming in for his share 

 of roguery, about the same as the man affectionately 



