the best paper
going--then pull the bell-rope and order in your bill, which you will pay
without counting it up--supposing you to be a gentleman. Give the waiter
sixpence, and order out your horse, and when your horse is out, pay for
the corn, and give the ostler a shilling, then mount your horse and walk
him gently for five miles; and whilst you are walking him in this manner,
it may be as well to tell you to take care that you do not let him down
and smash his knees, more especially if the road be a particularly good
one, for it is not at a desperate hiverman {152} pace, and over very bad
roads, that a horse tumbles and smashes his knees, but on your
particularly nice road, when the horse is going gently and lazily, and is
half asleep, like the gemman on his back; well, at the end of the five
miles, when the horse has digested his food, and is all right, you may
begin to push your horse on, trotting him a mile at a heat, and then
walking him a quarter of a one, that his wind may be not distressed; and
you may go on in that manner for thirty miles, never galloping of course,
for none but fools or hivermen ever gallop horses on roads; and at the
end of that distance you may stop at some other nice inn for dinner. I
say, when your horse is led into the stable, after that same thirty miles
trotting and walking, don't let the saddle be whisked off at once, for if
you do your horse will have such a sore back as will frighten you, but
let your saddle remain on your horse's back, with the girths loosened,
till after his next feed of corn, and be sure that he has no corn, much
less water, till after a long hour and more; after he is fed he may be
watered to the tune of half a pail, and then the ostler can give him a
regular rub down; you may then sit down to dinner, and when you have
dined get up and see to your horse as you did after breakfast, in fact
you must do much after the same fashion you did at t'other inn; see to
your horse, and by no means disoblige the ostler. So when you have seen
to your horse a second time, you will sit down to your bottle of
wine--supposing you to be a gentleman--and after you have finished it,
and your argument about the corn-laws with any commercial gentleman who
happens to be in the room, you may mount your horse again--not forgetting
to do the proper thing to the waiter and ostler; you may mount your horse
again and ride him, as you did before, for about five-and-twenty miles,
at the end o