There are many exceptions to this rule. I have found in my own experience that, when hurriedly getting together twenty or thirty horses for coaching purposes, I have been fascinated by symmetry, and perhaps by small figures, and have bought an unprofitable horse. A visit to St. Martin's Lane, under such circumstances, once made me possessor of the very prettiest animal I almost ever saw--a red chestnut mare, a broad front, two full intelligent eyes, with a head which would have gone easily into a pint pot, ears well set on, a long lean neck, joining to such withers and shoulders as would have shamed a Derby winner, legs and feet which defied unfavourable criticism. Here was a catch! And all this for eighteen guineas! Nothing said, nothing written; her face was her fortune, and I thought, mine too. She's too good for the coach; she ought to ride, to carry a lady; appears a perfect lamb. I could not resist what appeared to me an opportunity which everybody except myself seemed to neglect; I bowed to the gentleman in the box, who immediately dropped his hammer, saying: "For you!" I overheard some remarks from the spectators which did not confirm my satisfaction at having invested in an animal without any character. "She knows her way here by herself;" "She won't have leather at any price," whispered another coper; but, as all evil reports are resorted to by the craft on such occasions, I did not heed them. I soon found out that my new purchase was not precisely a lamb. To mount her was impossible. She reared, bucked, kicked, plunged, and finally threw herself down; so that part of the business I gave up. I then began to put harness upon her. To this she submitted cheerfully, and, when she had stood in it for two days, I gammoned her into her place in the break, when, having planted herself, she declined to move one inch. The schoolmaster (break-horse) exercised all the patience and encouragement which such equine instructors know so well how to administer. He started the load, pulling very gently. He pulled a little across her, he backed a few inches, then leaned suddenly from her. All this being to no purpose, he tried coercion, and dragged her on, upon which, turning the whites of her innocent eyes up, she made one plunge and flung herself down. The schoolmaster looked at her reproachfully, but stood still as a mouse, in spite of her whole weight being upon his pole-chain, till she was freed. [Illustration: AN UNEXPECTED GUEST.] She was too handsome to fight about on the stones, so I determined to try another dodge; and, putting a pair of wheelers behind her, and giving her a good free partner, I put her before the bars (near-side lead). Here the cross of the lamb in her was predominant, she went away, showing all the gentleness without even the skipping.