"One, rich in metaphors, his Cause contrives
To urge with edged words, like Kabul knives;
And I, who worst him in this sorry game,
Was never rich in anything but--wives."



JUDKIN OF THE PARCELS



A figure in an indefinite tweed suit, carrying brown-paper parcels.
That is what we met suddenly, at the bend of a muddy Dorsetshire
lane, and the roan mare stared and obviously thought of a curtsey.
The mare is road-shy, with intervals of stolidity, and there is no
telling what she will pass and what she won't. We call her Redford.
That was my first meeting with Judkin, and the next time the
circumstances were the same; the same muddy lane, the same rather
apologetic figure in the tweed suit, the same--or very similar--
parcels. Only this time the roan looked straight in front of her.

Whether I asked the groom or whether he advanced the information, I
forget; but someway I gradually reconstructed the life-history of
this trudger of the lanes. It was much the same, no doubt, as that
of many others who are from time to time pointed out to one as
having been aforetime in crack cavalry regiments and noted
performers in the saddle; men who have breathed into their lungs the
wonder of the East, have romped through life as through a cotillon,