“I’d take it very friendly of you, sir, if you’d give me your honest opinion of that horse,” said he, waving the Laranaga towards the animal. “I fancy he’s too good for our country; and I’ve a brother-in-law down in Rutland as wants to have him very bad. He’s just the cut, so he says, for these Melton gents; and he’s a good judge, is my brother-in-law, and a pretty rider to boot. He’d give me my price, too; but then, you know, sir, askin’ your pardon, it isn’t always ready money between relations; and that cuts the other way again, as a man may say. What do _you_ think, Mr. Sawyer?” “I’ll find out what he wants for him, at any rate,” thought the customer. “What’s his figure?” was the abrupt rejoinder. Mr. Sloper hesitated. “A hundred and—” _eighty_, he was going to say; but seeing his customer’s eye resting on the roan’s back-ribs—a point in which the horse was somewhat deficient—he dropped at once to seventy, and regretted it the next moment when he caught the expression of the listener’s face. “It isn’t _even_ money,” answered Mr. Sawyer, without, however, making the same sort of face he had done several times before, when he had refused to give double the sum at which he had eventually purchased. “I should say you might get a hundred and twenty for him down there, if you’d luck. But it’s a great risk—a great risk—and a long distance; and perhaps have him sent back to you in the spring. If I wanted a horse, _I’d_ give you a hundred for him, though he isn’t exactly my sort. A hundred!—I’ll tell you what, Sloper, I’ll be hanged if I won’t _chance_ it—I’ll _give_ you a hundred—_guineas_—come! Money down, and no questions asked.” “I can warrant him sound,” answered Mr. Sloper; “and I’d rather _you_ had him than anybody. But it’s childish talking of a hundred guineas and that horse on the same afternoon. However, I thank you kindly all the same, Mr. Sawyer. Barney! shut the box up. Come in, sir, and have _one_ glass of sherry before you start. The evenings get chill at this time of year, and that’s old sherry, and won’t hurt you no more than milk. He _is_ a nice horse, Mr. Sawyer, I think—a _very_ nice horse, and I’m glad you’re pleased with him.” So they returned into the little parlour, and stirred up the fire, and finished the bottle of old sherry: nor is it necessary to remark that, with the concluding glass of that generous fluid the roan became the property of John Standish Sawyer, under the following somewhat complicated agreement:—That he was to give an immediate cheque for a hundred and forty pounds, and ten pounds more at the end of the season; which latter donation was to be increased to twenty if he should sell him for anything over two hundred—a contingency which the dealer was pleased to observe amounted to what he called “a moral.”