If indeed, besides the prospect of making a tidy sum
at the end of perhaps forty years' ostlering, I had been certain of
being presented with a silver currycomb with my name engraved upon
it, which I might have left to my descendants, or, in default
thereof, to the parish church destined to contain my bones, with
directions that it might be soldered into the wall above the arch
leading from the body of the church into the chancel--I will not
say with such a certainty of immortality, combined with such a
prospect of moderate pecuniary advantage,--I might not have thought
it worth my while to stay, but I entertained no such certainty,
and, taking everything into consideration, I determined to mount my
horse and leave the inn.
This horse had caused me for some time past no little perplexity; I
had frequently repented of having purchased him, more especially as
the purchase had been made with another person's money, and had
more than once shown him to people who, I imagined, were likely to
purchase him; but, though they were profuse in his praise, as
people generally are in the praise of what they don't intend to
purchase, they never made me an offer, and now that I had
determined to mount on his back and ride away, what was I to do
with him in the sequel? I could not maintain him long.
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