“When the bolt is over, and the turn-out has come to a stand-still again, Fikey walks round and round it, as grave as a judge—me too. ‘There, Sir!’ I says. ‘There’s a neat thing!’ ‘It an’t a bad style of thing,’ he says. ‘I believe you,’ says I. ‘And there’s a horse!’—for I saw him looking at it. ‘Rising eight!’ I says, rubbing his fore-legs. (Bless you, there an’t a man in the world knows less of horses than I do, but I’d heard my friend at the Livery Stables say he was eight year old, so I says, as knowing as possible, ‘Rising Eight.’) ‘Rising eight, is he?’ says he. ‘Rising eight,’ says I. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘what do you want for it?’ ‘Why, the first and last figure for the whole concern is five-and-twenty pound!’ ‘That’s very cheap!’ he says, looking at me. ‘An’t it?’ I says. ‘I told you it was a bargain! Now, without any higgling and haggling about it, what I want is to sell, and that’s my price. Further, I’ll make it easy to you, and take half the money down, and you can do a bit of stiff[1] for the balance.’ ‘Well,’ he says again, ‘that’s very cheap.’ ‘I believe you,’ says I; ‘get in and try it, and you’ll buy it. Come! take a trial!’ Footnote 1: Give a bill. “Ecod, he gets in, and we get in, and we drive along the road, to show him to one of the railway clerks that was hid in the public-house window to identify him. But the clerk was bothered, and didn’t know whether it was him, or wasn’t—because the reason why? I’ll tell you,—on account of his having shaved his whiskers. ‘It’s a clever little horse,’ he says, ‘and trots well; and the shay runs light.’ ‘Not a doubt about it,’ I says. ‘And now, Mr. Fikey, I may as well make it all right, without wasting any more of your time. The fact is, I’m Inspector Wield, and you’re my prisoner.’ ‘You don’t mean that?’ he says. ‘I do, indeed.’ ‘Then burn my body,’ says Fikey, ‘if this ain’t _too_ bad!’ “Perhaps you never saw a man so knocked over with surprise. ‘I hope you’ll let me have my coat?’ he says. ‘By all means.’ ‘Well, then, let’s drive to the factory.’ ‘Why, not exactly that, I think,’ said I; ‘I’ve been there, once before, to-day. Suppose we send for it,’ He saw it was no go, so he sent for it, and put it on, and we drove him up to London, comfortable.” This reminiscence is in the height of its success, when a general proposal is made to the fresh-complexioned, smooth-faced officer, with the strange air of simplicity, to tell the “Butcher’s story.” But we must reserve the Butcher’s story, together with another not less curious in its way, for a concluding paper. “SWINGING THE SHIP.” A VISIT TO THE COMPASS OBSERVATORY.