Our purchaser began to think he might possibly have hit upon _the_ animal at last. Often as he had been at the game, and often as he had been disappointed, he was still sanguine enough to believe he might draw the prize-ticket in the lottery at any time. As I imagine every man who pulls on his boots to go out hunting has a sort of vague hope that to-day may be his day of triumph with the hounds, so the oldest and wariest of us cannot go into a dealer’s yard without a sort of half-conscious idea that there _must_ be a trump card somewhere in the pack, and it _may_ be our luck to hold it as well as another’s.
But Sloper, like the rest of his trade, was not going to show his game first. It seems to be a maxim with all salesmen to prove their customers with inferior articles before they come to the real thing. Mr. Sawyer had to walk through a four-stall stable, and inspect, preparatory to declining, a mealy bay cob, a lame grey, a broken-winded chestnut, and an enormous brown animal, very tall, very narrow, very ugly, with extremely upright forelegs and shoulders to match. The latter his owner affirmed to be “_an extraordinary shaped un_” as no doubt he was. A little playful _badinage_ on the merits of this last enlivened the visit.
“What will you take for the brown, Sloper, if I buy him at so much the foot?” said the customer, as they emerged into the fresh air.
“Say ten pound a foot, sir!” answered Job, with the utmost gravity, “and ten over, because _he always has a foot to spare_. Come now, Mr. Sawyer, I can afford to let a good customer like you have that horse for _fefty_. _Fefty_ guineas, or even _pounds_, sir, to _you_. I got him in a bad debt, you see, sir;—it’s Bible truth I’m telling ye;—and he only stood _me_ in forty-seven pounds ten, _and_ a sov. I gave the man as brought him over. He’s not everybody’s horse, Mr. Sawyer, that isn’t; but I think he’ll carry _you_ remarkably well.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever give him a chance,” was the rejoinder. “Come, Job, we’re burning daylight; let’s go and have a look at the crack.”
One individual had been listening to the above conversation with thrilling interest. This was no less a personage than Barney, Mr. Sloper’s head groom, general factotum, and rough-rider in ordinary—an official whose business it was to ride anything _at_ anything, for anybody who asked him. He was a little old man, with one eye, a red handkerchief, and the general appearance of a post-boy on half-pay; a sober fellow, too, and as brave as King Richard; yet had he expressed himself strongly about this said brown horse, the previous evening, to the maid-of-all-work. “He’s the wussest we’ve had yet,” was his fiat. “It’s nateral for ’em to fall; but when _he_ falls, he’s all over a chap till he’s crumpled him.” So his heroic heart beat more freely when they adjourned to the neighbouring box.