'"I return you my most hearty thanks for the very salutary advice you have been good enough to give me, from which I have derived much improvement, and should have acknowledged sooner had I made sufficient trial of the fine machine you recommended in such warm terms. My hobby, as I told you before, is an admirable animal, and finely calculated for a pensive man like myself to take the air upon. It was a pity he was prone to tumble, and that, too, in stony roads the most, for he was otherwise bordering on perfection. So I sent for a carpenter on the receipt of your recipe, and had a large puzzle of oak made for him, after the pattern of those worn by the Squire's pointers, and I have found it answer prodigiously.
'"I have had nothing like a bad fall lately, except one day in cantering over a ploughed field, where, upon a blunder, the machine entered the ground with such force as to introduce a portion of the hobby's head along with it. We came clean over, and for some time I thought my hobby's neck was broken. I did not mind it myself; but I shall take care in future always to gallop on the hard road, and then such another catastrophe cannot ensue.
'"I am, sir,
'"Your very obsequious humble servant,
'"Caleb Cassock.
'" P.S.—I forgot to tell you my parishioners stare at me a good deal. The machine has an odd appearance, I own, but not altogether unpicturesque. I got the drawing master of Mr. Birch's school to send you a sketch of us. It is esteemed a likeness. That of the hobby is rather flattering."
'My Remarks.
'"I am happy to find the puzzle has answered so well; and I doubt not now it has been tried and approved by such a right-headed reverend gentleman, one who is also so good a horseman, and understands all the matter so well, that, by producing his name, I shall be able to get a patent for it, which cannot but prove very lucrative, for who has the horse that he will swear will never tumble down?
'"This I believe would be a question that would pose (upon oath) every man on horseback in Hyde Park on a Sunday.
'"Though Dr. Shaw, who is a great traveller indeed, has the modesty to assure us that the Barbary horses never lie down; yet even he has not the effrontery to say that they never tumble down!