Now, Dick Naggett could do the selling business, especially the _talking_ part of it, to admiration. Turning out in extremely neat attire, and with some article of dress, either coat, neckcloth, or hat, peculiarly conspicuous, he could not be overlooked, and whilst careful never to ask his horse to do more than the animal could handsomely accomplish, he at the same time gave a customer such glowing descriptions of its prowess, that he sold more than one very moderate hunter of Old Nobbler’s for about twice its value, and three times what the lawyer had given for it.
On these emergencies, too, Dick thought proper to affect the townsman, and sink the agriculturist altogether—a propensity which elicited on one occasion from Lord Castle-Cropper the only joke that reserved nobleman was ever known to perpetrate. Dick was holding forth, as usual at the covert-side, on the merits of the horse he was riding, and the silent Earl emerging from the recesses of Deepdale Wood, which had just been drawn blank, and followed by old Potiphar, a solemn badger-pied hound, not entirely unlike his Lordship in the face, paused to listen to the conversation.
“I’m only asking a hundred and seventy for him,” said Dick; “he’s the cheapest horse out to-day. I’ll appeal to my Lord if he isn’t.”
Lord Castle-Cropper ran his eye over the animal. “I could have bought him this time last year for that money exactly,” replied he, “barring the hundred.”
“Oh! but all stock has risen since then,” retorted Dick, loud and unabashed, “cent. per cent. I should say—sheep, cows, poultry, guinea-pigs, and fancy rabbits!”
The silent Earl was one of those provoking people who, always sticking to facts, always seem to have them, so to speak, at their fingers’ ends.
“I can only tell you, Mr. Naggett,” said his Lordship, “that I am glad to take now two-thirds of the price I paid six months back for all kinds of stock. I am a farmer myself, as perhaps you know.”
Dick was impudence personified. “Then you use us townspeople precious hard, my Lord,” said he. “A nice price you farmers make us pay for our mutton.”
“I think you lawyers make us pay a good deal dearer _for the skins_,” retorted his Lordship; and although he never moved a muscle of his own countenance, the bystanders raised such a shout of laughter as made old Potiphar erect his ears and bristles, thinking a fox must have been viewed away, and as shut up Dick Naggett for the next ten minutes at least, after which he recovered completely, and sold his horse for a trifle less than he asked, before the day was out.