“MORNIN’, sir,” says Mr. Sloper, scenting a customer as he accosts his guest. “Oh, it’s you, is it, Mr. Sawyer? Won’t ye step in and sit down after your walk? Take a glass of mild ale and a crust of bread-and-cheese, or a drop of sherry or anythink?” “No hunting to-day, Job,” answers the visitor, declining the refreshment; “so I just toddled over to see how you’re getting on, and have a look round the stables; no harm in looking, you know.” Mr. Sloper’s face assumes an expression of profound mystery. “I’m glad you come over to-day, sir,” he says, in a tone of confidential frankness, “of all days in the year. I’ve a ’orse here, as I should like to ast your opinion about—a gent like _you_ as knows what a ’unter really is. And so you should, Mr. Sawyer, for there’s no man alive takes greater liberties with ’em when they _can_ go and do it. And I’ve got one in that box, as _I_ think, just _is_ more than curious.” “Would he carry _me_?” asks Mr. Sawyer, with well-affected indifference, as if he had not come over expressly to find one that would. “Not that I _want_ a horse, you know; but if I saw one I liked very much, and you didn’t price him too high, why I _might_ be induced to buy against next season, perhaps.” Job took his hands out of his coat-pockets, and spread them abroad, as it were to dry. The action denoted extreme purity and candour. “No; I don’t think as he ought to carry _you_, sir,” was the unexpected reply. “Now, I ain’t a-going to tell you a lie, Mr. Sawyer. This horse didn’t _ought_ to be ridden, not the way _you_ take and ride them, Mr. Sawyer; leastways not over such a blind heart-breaking country as this here. He’s too good, _he_ is, for that kind of work; he ought to be in Leicestershire, _he_ ought; the Harborough country, that’s the country for him. He’s too fast for _us_, and that’s the truth. Only, to be sure, we have a vast of plough hereabout, and _I_ never see such a sticker through dirt. It makes no odds to him, pasture _or_ plough, and the sweetest hack ever I clapped eyes on besides. However, you shall judge for yourself, Mr. Sawyer. I won’t ask you to believe _me_. You’ve a quicker eye to a horse than I have, by a long chalk, and I’d sooner have your opinion than my own. I _would_ now, and that’s the truth!” 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.