and Hechingen, and in Baden--he knew the condition and the
muster of every stable just as accurately as a great statesman knows
the statistics of foreign states and the position of cabinets; and, as
the latter sounds the state of public feeling in the newspapers, so
did Mike in the taverns. In every village he had a scapegrace as
minister-resident, with whom he often held secret conferences, and
who, in cases of importance, would send him couriers,--to wit,
themselves,--asking nothing but a good drink-money, in the strict sense
of the word. Besides these, he had secret agents who would incite
people to revolutions in their stables; and thus his shed, which served
the purpose of a stable, was generally tenanted by some broken-down
hack in the course of preparation for publicity,--_i.e._ for sale on
market-day. He would dye the hair over its eyes and file its teeth;
and, though the poor beast was thereby disabled from eating any thing
but bran, and must starve on any thing else, he cared little, for at
the next market he was sure to sell it again.

He had some curious tricks of the trade. Sometimes he instructed an
understrapper to pretend to be making a trade with him. They would
become very noisy, and at last Mike would say, in a very loud tone of
voice, "I can't trade. I've no feed and no stabling; and, if I must
give the horse away for a ducat, away he must go." Or he would pay some
stupid farmer's lout to ride the horse up and down, and then observe,
"If a man had that horse that knew what to do with it he might make
something out of it. The build is capital: the bones are English. If he
had a little flesh he would be worth his twenty ducats." If a purchaser
turned up, he would undertake to get him the horse, stipulating a
commission for himself for the sale of his own property. What he hated
most was a warranty: rather than sign that he always agreed to throw
off a ducat or two. Nevertheless, he had many a lawsuit, which eat up
the horse and the profit; but the unsettled life he led had such a
charm that he could not think of leaving it, and he always hoped that
the profit on one speculation would compensate for the losses on
another. His principle was never to leave the market without a bargain.
The Jews of the markets were also his accomplices, and he would return
their favors in kind.

[Illustration: He would pass his brother breaking stones on the road.]

Sometimes, in riding out on these excursions, or in co