A railway porter will give you quite a lot, an hotel porter will unbend slightly, and under its influence even a taxi-cab driver, if the fare is about seven and sixpence, will appear fairly human. But if you want your money's worth, go briskly into Aldridge's or Tattersall's on the day of a horse sale, walk up to a man who wears a white jacket and holds a whip, give him half a crown and say at the same time: "Selling any hunters to-day?" You know at once that you have made a hit. As an American would say, he reacts immediately. In one swift eye-sweep he has made a mental note of you; he knows the kind of horse he thinks you ride, the way you will ride it, and so on. He looks knowing, a quality shared by all men even remotely connected with the sale of horseflesh, and, slightly closing one eye, he whispers: "Come with me, sir!" * * * You are in a stable facing the posteriors of many horses. The hunters, the aristocrats of the sale, are boxed together in a corner, but there are big hefty carthorses and sturdy hacks of every kind. You look down the catalogue: "Bay mare, has been ridden side-saddle and astride." What lovely girl rode her side-saddle and astride, you wonder, called her "Nelly," and came to the stable every morning with a lump of sugar? "Look out, sir!" says your admirer, as he taps Nelly's hocks lightly with his whip, causing her to swerve round and show you a dilated pupil and a suspiciously poised near-side hoof. "Now, sir, that's your 'oss, that is!" You don't deceive him. You don't explain that you are only doing this for fun, to while away a weary hour, to banish ennui. On he goes, a natural-born auctioneer. She's your weight, she is, and she has a lovely mouth, she has, and he wouldn't be surprised if she was a marvellous jumper, he wouldn't.... For one half-crown and a minimum amount of attention you can spend hours with this man prodding flanks, feeling hocks, and running your hand over withers, but the best thing to do is to run down the horses, call them "rough stuff," and go off into the yard where they are having a sale. Now horse fancying has created a unique type of man familiar to you in the country, but never seen in London except at these sales. When you regard them _en masse_ the effect is remarkable. You feel that if a coach-and-four suddenly drove in they could all take seats and drive out looking like one of Cruikshank's illustrations in Dickens. People would say: "What are they advertising?"