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‘When you are a gentleman,’ said he, after a pause, ’the first thing you must think about is to provide yourself with a good horse for your own particular riding; you will perhaps keep a coach and pair, but they will be less your own than your lady’s, should you have one, and your young gentry, should you have any; or, if you have neither, for madam, your housekeeper, and the upper female servants, so you need trouble your head less about them, though, of course, you would not like to pay away your money for screws; but be sure you get a good horse for your own riding; and that you may have a good chance of having a good one, buy one that’s young and has plenty of belly—­a little more than the one has which you now have, though you are not yet a gentleman; you will, of course, look to his head, his withers, legs and other points, but never buy a horse at any price that has not plenty of belly; no horse that has not belly is ever a good feeder, and a horse that a’n’t a good feeder, can’t be a good horse; never buy a horse that is drawn up in the belly behind; a horse of that description can’t feed, and can never carry sixteen stone.

’When you have got such a horse be proud of it—­as I dare say you are of the one you have now—­and wherever you go swear there a’n’t another to match it in the country, and if anybody gives you the lie, take him by the nose and tweak it off, just as you would do if anybody were to speak ill of your lady, or, for want of her, of your housekeeper.  Take care of your horse, as you would of the apple of your eye—­I am sure I would if I were a gentleman, which I don’t ever expect to be, and hardly wish, seeing as how I am sixty-nine, and am rather too old to ride—­yes, cherish and take care of your horse as perhaps the best friend you have in the world; for, after all, who will carry you through thick and thin as your horse will? not your gentlemen friends, I warrant, nor your housekeeper, nor your upper servants, male or female; perhaps your lady would, that is, if she is a whopper, and one of the right sort; the others would be more likely to take up mud and pelt you with it, provided they saw you in trouble, than to help you.  So take care of your horse, and feed him every day with your own hands; give him three-quarters of a peck of corn each day, mixed up with a little hay-chaff, and allow him besides one hundredweight of hay in the course of a week; some say that the hay should be hardland hay, because it is wholesomest, but I say, let it be clover hay, because the horse likes it best; give him through summer and winter, once a week, a pailful of bran mash, cold in summer and in winter hot; ride him gently about the neighbourhood every day, by which means you will give exercise to yourself and horse, and, moreover, have the satisfaction of exhibiting yourself and your horse to advantage, and hearing, perhaps, the men say what a fine horse, and the ladies saying what a fine man:  never