 than others bore their moderation, and, on the whole, flourished
like the green bay-tree. But his range of conversation was limited, and like the
fine old tune, »Drops of brandy,« gave you after a while a sense of returning
upon itself in a way that might make weak heads dizzy. But a slight infusion of
Mr. Bambridge was felt to give tone and character to several circles in
Middlemarch; and he was a distinguished figure in the bar and billiard-room at
the Green Dragon. He knew some anecdotes about the heroes of the turf, and
various clever tricks of Marquesses and Viscounts which seemed to prove that
blood asserted its pre-eminence even among blacklegs; but the minute
retentiveness of his memory was chiefly shown about the horses he had himself
bought and sold; the number of miles they would trot you in no time without
turning a hair being, after the lapse of years, still a subject of passionate
asseveration, in which he would assist the imagination of his hearers by
solemnly swearing that they never saw anything like it. In short, Mr. Bambridge
was a man of pleasure and a gay companion.
    Fred was subtle, and did not tell his friends that he was going to Houndsley
bent on selling his horse: he wished to get indirectly at their genuine opinion
of its value, not being aware that a genuine opinion was the last thing likely
to be extracted from such eminent critics. It was not Mr. Bambridge's weakness
to be a gratuitous flatterer. He had never before been so much struck with the
fact that this unfortunate bay was a roarer to a degree which required the
roundest word for perdition to give you any idea of it.
    »You made a bad hand at swapping when you went to anybody but me, Vincy!
Why, you never threw your leg across a finer horse than that chesnut, and you
gave him for this brute. If you set him cantering, he goes on like twenty
sawyers. I never heard but one worse roarer in my life, and that was a roan: it
belonged to Pegwell, the corn-factor; he used to drive him in his gig seven
years ago, and he wanted me to take him, but I said, Thank you, Peg, I don't
deal in wind-instruments. That was what I said. It went the round of the
country, that joke did. But, what the hell! the horse was a penny trumpet to
that roarer of yours.«
    »Why, you said just now his was worse than mine,« said
