" "Well," said I,
"thank you for your advice, which I will take, and, if successful,
will give you 'summut' handsome." "Thank you," said the ostler;
"and now let me ask whether you are up to all the ways of this here
place?" "I have never been here before," said I, "but I have a
pair of tolerably sharp eyes in my head." "That I see you have,"
said the ostler, "but many a body, with as sharp a pair of eyes as
yourn, has lost his horse in this fair, for want of having been
here before, therefore," said he, "I'll give you a caution or two."
Thereupon the ostler proceeded to give me at least half a dozen
cautions, only two of which I shall relate to the reader: --the
first, not to stop to listen to what any chance customer might have
to say; and the last--the one on which he appeared to lay most
stress--by no manner of means to permit a Yorkshireman to get up
into the saddle, "for," said he, "if you do, it is three to one
that he rides off with the horse; he can't help it; trust a cat
amongst cream, but never trust a Yorkshireman on the saddle of a
good horse; by-the-by," he continued, "that saddle of yours is not
a particularly good one, no more is the bridle. I tell you what,
as you seem a decent kind of a young chap, I'll lend you a saddle
and bridle of my master's, almost bran new; he won't object, I
know, as you are a friend of his, only you must not forget your
promise to come down with summut handsome after you have sold the
animal.
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