AFTER this Diamond recovered so fast, that in a few days he was quite
able to go home as soon as his father had a place for them to go. Now
his father having saved a little money, and finding that no situation
offered itself, had been thinking over a new plan. A strange occurrence
it was which turned his thoughts in that direction. He had a friend in
the Bloomsbury region, who lived by letting out cabs and horses to the
cabmen. This man, happening to meet him one day as he was returning from
an unsuccessful application, said to him:
“Why don't you set up for yourself now--in the cab line, I mean?”
“I haven't enough for that,” answered Diamond's father.
“You must have saved a goodish bit, I should think. Just come home with
me now and look at a horse I can let you have cheap. I bought him only a
few weeks ago, thinking he'd do for a Hansom, but I was wrong. He's got
bone enough for a waggon, but a waggon ain't a Hansom. He ain't got go
enough for a Hansom. You see parties as takes Hansoms wants to go like
the wind, and he ain't got wind enough, for he ain't so young as he once
was. But for a four-wheeler as takes families and their luggages, he's
the very horse. He'd carry a small house any day. I bought him cheap,
and I'll sell him cheap.”
“Oh, I don't want him,” said Diamond's father. “A body must have time
to think over an affair of so much importance. And there's the cab too.
That would come to a deal of money.”
“I could fit you there, I daresay,” said his friend. “But come and look
at the animal, anyhow.”
“Since I lost my own old pair, as was Mr. Coleman's,” said Diamond's
father, turning to accompany the cab-master, “I ain't almost got the
heart to look a horse in the face. It's a thousand pities to part man
and horse.”
“So it is,” returned his friend sympathetically.
But what was the ex-coachman's delight, when, on going into the stable
where his friend led him, he found the horse he wanted him to buy was
no other than his own old Diamond, grown very thin and bony and
long-legged, as if they, had been doing what they could to fit him for
Hansom work!
“He ain't a Hansom horse,” said Diamond's father indignantly.
“Well, you're right. He ain't handsome, but he's a good un” said his
owner.
“Who says he ain't handsome? He's one of the handsomest horses a
gentleman's coachman ever druv,” said Diamond's father; remarking to
himself under his breath--“though I says it as shouldn't”--for he did
not feel inclined all at once to confess that his own old horse could
have sunk so low.
“Well,” said his friend, “all I say is--There's a animal for you, as
strong as a church; an'll go like a train, leastways a parly,” he added,
correcting himself.
But the coachman had a lump in his throat and tears in his eyes. For the
old horse, hearing his voice, had turned his long neck, and when his
old friend went up to him and laid his hand on his side, he whinnied
for joy, and laid his big head on his master's breast. This settled the
matter. The coachman's arms were round the horse's neck in a moment, and
he fairly broke down and cried. The cab-master had never been so fond of
a horse himself as to hug him like that, but he saw in a moment how it
was. And he must have been a good-hearted fellow, for I never heard of
such an idea coming into the head of any other man with a horse to sell:
instead of putting something on to the price because he was now pretty
sure of selling him, he actually took a pound off what he had meant to
ask for him, saying to himself it was a shame to part old friends.
Diamond's father, as soon as he came to himself, turned and asked how
much he wanted for the horse.
“I see you're old friends,” said the owner.
“It's my own old Diamond. I liked him far the best of the pair, though
the other was good. You ain't got him too, have you?”
“No; nothing in the stable to match him there.”
“I believe you,” said the coachman. “But you'll be wanting a long price
for him, I know.”
“No, not so much. I bought him cheap, and as I say, he ain't for my
work.”
The end of it was that Diamond's father bought old Diamond again, along
with a four-wheeled cab. And as there were some rooms to be had over the
stable, he took them, wrote to his wife to come home, and set up as a
cabman.