He found the senior busy in his little saddle-room, engaged in no less important an occupation than the improvement of The Boy’s morals and general deportment, for which I grieve to observe, since his arrival at Harborough, there was sufficient room. The youth, though he worked hard, was seldom sober now, and never told the truth but by accident. Isaac’s method of imparting ethical instruction was uncompromising, if not agreeable. With the lad’s collar in one hand, and a spare stirrup-leather in the other, he insisted forcibly on those maxims which he considered most salutary to the tender mind, accompanying each with a stinging illustration from the strap; the dialogue between the sage and his disciple being conducted much in this wise:— Isaac: “I’ve told you over and over again, ye young warmint, and I’ll tell it ye every day I live, if I larrup the skin off ye.” (Whack.) The Boy: “Oh, please!” Isaac: “You’ll never rise in life, nor be fit to be called a stableman, without you can work them qualities which have made _me_ what I am; that’s what I am a teaching of ye.” (Whack.) The Boy: “Oh, please!” Isaac: “First and foremost, sobriety.”—(Whack, and “Oh, please!”) “Secondly, honesty, coupled with early rising.”—(Whack again, and a howling “Oh, please!” from the pupil.) “Thirdly and lastly, sobriety.”—(Whack.) “I’ll go over ’em again; them’s the three cardinal virtues. You mind what I’m a tellin’ ye—Sobriety, honesty, coupled with early rising, and sobriety.” (Whack, whack, whack; and “Oh, please! oh, please! oh, please!”) At this juncture, Mr. Tiptop entered. Casting an approving glance at the mode of treatment adopted, he seated himself on an inverted stable-bucket, and professed his readiness to await old Isaac’s leisure ere he asked to have “a word with him.” The other let go of The Boy’s collar—who darted from the place like a weasel—and put on his own coat and hat. Thus armed, he waited to hear what his guest had to say. Mr. Tiptop broached the subject at once. “Rum go, this here!” said he, hoisting his hat on to his eyebrows. “Uncommon queer start it is, about your bay horse. Can’t get him _out_, I can’t, do what I will with him; the beggar seems well, too, and pretty fit, as far as I see, and I’ve trained a few of them! If I didn’t _know_ he was a smartish nag now, I should say he was as slow as an eight-day clock when it runs down. What am I to think of it?” Isaac’s little blue eyes twinkled for an instant, but turned to stone once more, as he replied slowly, “Think of it? Well, it seems to _me_, now, that he won’t be much use to your governor if he can’t win.” “Not he!” answered Mr. Tiptop, contemptuously. “I could have told _you_ that. What I want to know is, why the beggar was so much better in your stable than in ours? Come, old chap! you and me has always been good friends, give us an _item_ now; what would you do with him, if you was me?”