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Essays On Social Subjects. with a Memoir by Sir W. Stirling Maxwell
Essays On Social Subjects with a Memoir by Sir W Stirling Maxwell Author:Matthew James Higgins, William Benton Clulow, William Jones Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: MR. Z., THE HORSE-DEALER. Reader, I am going to look at some horses at the well-known Mr. Z.'s stables. If you will accompany me thither, I think you will be ... more »amused and edified. Here we are. This sprinkling of bright yellow sand on the foot-pavement is an unfailing token of the vicinity of a horse-dealer's yard. The long passage by which we enter his premises is as clean as paint and care can make it, and is paved with wood. On the right hand, the yard is deeply littered with clean fresh straw, curiously plaited at the edges ; on the left the wooden pavement is decorated with more of the bright yellow sand. Opposite to the entrance is the office, with its clear plate-glass windows, polished mahogany desk, and Turkey carpet. Outside it, on a wooden horse,are three or four saddles, fitting every horse and every rider better than any saddle ever fitted them before, and neither too new or too old, but just of that mellow hue which best becomes a two hundred nag. Above, on pegs, hang as many bridles, with their bright bits and curb-chains, and fresh cttrise satin fronts. Not a soul is to be seen stirring about the place. You need not holloa, reader,—neither Mr. Z. or his people are men to be aroused by such a vulgar style of summons. Do as that shining bright plate directs you : ' Pull the Office Bell.' Its deep tone resounds through the yard. An inner door leading from the dwelling-house into the office opens, and the polite Mr. Z. presents himself. He is a middle-aged man, well-made, and well- dressed ; his costume is scarcely ' sporting,' and if he be not perfectly aristocratic in his bearing, he only betrays himself by a too visible assumption of the genteel. He listens intelligently to our description of the sort of animal we require, and then, turning to ayou...« less