t he should take the horse and sell him. It did not occur
to him that by so doing he would put it in Mr. Sowerby's power to
say that some valuable consideration had passed between them with
reference to this bill, and that he would be aiding that gentleman
in preparing an inextricable confusion of money-matters between them.
Mr. Sowerby well knew the value of this. It would enable him to make
a plausible story, as he had done in that other case of Lord Lufton.
"Are you going to have Dandy?" Sowerby said to him again.

"I can't say that I will just at present," said the parson. "What
should I want of him now the season's over?"

"Exactly, my dear fellow; and what do I want of him now the season's
over? If it were the beginning of October instead of the end of
March, Dandy would be up at two hundred and thirty instead of one:
in six months' time that horse will be worth anything you like to
ask for him. Look at his bone." The vicar did look at his bones,
examining the brute in a very knowing and unclerical manner. He
lifted the animal's four feet, one after another, handling the frogs,
and measuring with his eye the proportion of the parts; he passed his
hand up and down the legs, spanning the bones of the lower joint; he
peered into his eyes, took into consideration the width of his chest,
the dip of his back, the form of his ribs, the curve of his haunches,
and his capabilities for breathing when pressed by work. And then
he stood away a little, eyeing him from the side, and taking in a
general idea of the form and make of the whole. "He seems to stand
over a little, I think," said the parson.

"It's the lie of the ground. Move him about, Bob. There now, let him
stand there."

"He's not perfect," said Mark. "I don't quite like his heels; but no
doubt he's a niceish cut of a horse."

"I rather think he is. If he were perfect, as you say, he would not
be going into your stables for a hundred and thirty. Do you ever
remember to have seen a perfect horse?"

"Your mare Mrs. Gamp was as nearly perfect as possible."

"Even Mrs. Gamp had her faults. In the first place she was a bad
feeder. But one certainly doesn't often come across anything much
better than Mrs. Gamp." And thus the matter was talked over between
them with much stable conversation, all of which tended to make
Sowerby more and more oblivious of his friend's sacred profession,
and perhaps to make the vicar himself too frequently oblivious of it
also. But