Tattersall's

“ One of the two portraits, of Richard Tattersall, by Thomas Beach [q. v.] , is in the possession of the present head of the firm, and depicts a solid, benevolent, rather melancholy-looking man. The veteran's hand rests on the ‘stud-book,’ and beneath is the legend ‘Highflyer not to be sold,’ alluding to the decree by which the grateful owner assured the euthanasia of the famous racehorse. ”

“ You think it is wicked in me to talk in this brutal way about bargain and sale; and say that your heart’s darling is, at this minute, being paced up and down the Mayfair market to be taken away by the best bidder. Can you count purses with Sultan Farintosh? Can you compete even with Sir John Fobsby of the North? What I say is wicked and worldly, is it? So it is; but it is true, as true as Tattersall’s—as true as Circassia or Virginia. Don’t you know that the Circassian girls are proud of their bringing up, and take rank according to the prices which they fetch? ”

“ Frederick Langdale was, as usual, with his betrothed, and Mrs. Harding enjoying the egotism of the lovers, (for, as I said before, lovers think their conversation the most charming in the world, because they talk of nothing but themselves) when his curricle was driven to the door to convey him to Tattersall’s, where his father had commissioned him to look at a horse, or horses, which he intended to purchase; for Frederick was, of all things in the world, the best possible judge of a horse. ”

“ He thought he heard the tones of a piano and of a syren singing, coming from the drawing-room and sweeping over the balcony-shrubbery of geraniums. He would have liked to stop and listen, but it might not be. “Drive to Tattersall’s,” he said to the groom, in a voice smothered with emotion,—“And bring my pony round,” he added, as the man drove rapidly away.
As good luck would have it, that splendid barouche of Lady Clavering’s, which has been inadequately described in a former chapter, drove up to her ladyship’s door just as Foker mounted the pony which was in waiting for him. ”

“ Maud leaned back against her knee. "He is trying to be," she said. "You know that the Stud has been sold?"
"It really has?" said Mrs. Wright.
"Yes, it really has. The animals were to have been sent to Tattersall's, but a man we know--an American--came at the very beginning of the year and made an offer on behalf of a friend of his that Lord Saltash's agent thought too good to refuse. He has gone back to America now, and no doubt his principal will make his appearance soon. The idea is to build new Stables nearer to Graydown. Jake is negotiating about some land there. ”

“ Rag lets Famish accompany him to Tattersall's, and sells him bargains in horse-flesh, and uses Famish's cab. That young gentleman's regiment is in India, and he is at home on sick leave. He recruits his health by being intoxicated every night, and fortifies his lungs, which are weak, by smoking cigars all day. The policemen about the Haymarket know the little creature, and the early cabmen salute him. The closed doors of fish and lobster shops open after service, and vomit out little Famish, who is either tipsy and quarrelsome—when he wants to fight the cabmen ”

“ Arrived at the stables, it was not long before Doctor Gambado introduced his brother and friend Doctor Bull to the noted personage of his day, John Tattsall. Is the name of Tattsall, as it used to be called, corrupted, from a hundred years ago, now to that of Tattersall? We do not know the gentleman's dealer, auctioner, or horse agent of the latter name; but if he be the descendant of the great John Tattsall, we only hope he is as good a man as his ancestor. A better in his line could never be. It requires a knowledge of a man's craft, to say whether he is a good or bad workmen at it. ”

“ Then there was Thomas Poole, the friend of Paine, the friend also of Coleridge and Sir Humphry Davy. He went to hear the Abbé Sicard lecture to the deaf and dumb.
From books to horses is a long jump. Edward Tattersall had been sent over in 1775 on an invitation from M. de Mezières, equerry to Louis XVI., and had much enjoyed himself. His father Richard, who supplied horses for the French royal stud, told the French host not to spoil the boy, but to make him keep his place, as he would have to earn his own livelihood. ”

“ Tattersall was not only powerful at Newmarket, but popular as well; and in those days, when Highway-men infested all the roads leading into this place where money flowed so freely, was the only man who could with impunity go back and forth, unattended and unarmed, with his pockets full of gold. ”

“ I wanted to be sure of the treachery of Grace Tattersall.
“You asked me not to beat about the bush, a minute ago,” I said, “and now you’re trying to dodge all my questions with the most futile and palpable evasions.”
“For instance?” he replied calmly, with a cunning that nearly trapped me. For when I tried to recall, as I thought I could, a specific and convincing instance of his evasion, I realised that to cite a case would only draw us into an irrelevant bickering over side issues. ”

“ George Tattersall (1792–1853) , the youngest of the three sons of Edmund (I) , started life as a farmer in Norfolk, but lost a good deal of money, and eventually moved to Dawley, where for some years he managed the Tattersalls' stud-farm, though he was never a partner in the business. He married Eliza Reeve of Wighton in Norfolk, and had issue a son Edmund (‘Edmund III,’ 1816–1898) , who became head of the firm of Tattersall in 1870. The third Edmund, born at Sculthorpe, Norfolk, on 9 Feb. ”

“ But see what it is to possess a good conscience! In spite of rats, cold, spiders, and beetles, the great Tartarin found in the horror of that state-prison, haunted by the shades of martyrs, the same solid and sonorous sleep, mouth open, fists closed, which came to him, between the abysses and heaven, in the hut of the Alpine Club. He fancied he was dreaming when he heard his jailer say in the morning:—
“Get up; the prefect of the district is here... He has come to examine you...” Adding, with a certain respect, “To bring the prefect out in this way... why, you must be a famous scoundrel.” ”

“ Taterleg remained at the gate, because he looked better on a horse than off, and he was not wanting in that vain streak which any man with a backbone and marrow in him possesses. He wanted to appear at his best when the boss of that high-class outfit laid her eyes on him for the first time; and if he had hopes that she might succumb to his charms, they were no more extravagant than most men's are under similar conditions.
Off to one side of a long barn Lambert saw her as he opened the gate. She was trying to coax a young calf to drink out of a bucket that an old negro held under its nose. ”

“ He checked his horse a moment to look round on the vast sweep of country presented to view from the height, the river lying as bright as quicksilver in the dun land.
"Not even a wire fence to break it!" Taterleg drew his shoulders up and shivered in the hot morning sun as he contemplated the untrammeled roadway of the northern winds. "Well, sir, it looks to me like a cyclone carried that house from somewheres and slammed it down. No man in his right senses ever built it there."
"People take queer freaks sometimes, even in their senses. I guess we can ride right around to the door." ”

“ It was hours afterward that the fence rider opened his eyes and saw Vesta Philbrook, and closed them again, believing it was a delirium of his pain. Then Taterleg spoke on the other side of the bed, and he knew that he had come through his perils into gentle hands.
"How're you feelin', old sport?" Taterleg inquired with anxious tenderness.
[Pg 242] Lambert turned his head toward the voice and grinned a little, in the teeth-baring, hard-pulling way of a man who has withstood a great deal more than the human body and mind ever were designed to undergo. He thought he spoke to Taterleg ”

“ The man in the chair lifted himself in sudden grimness, sat up from between the barber's massaging hands, which still held their pose like some sort of brace, turned a threatening look into the road. If half his face was sufficient to raise the declaration from Taterleg that the man was uglier than he, all of it surely proclaimed him the homeliest man in the nation. His eyes were red, as from some long carousal, their lids heavy and slow, his neck was long, and inflamed like an old gobbler's when he inflates himself with his impotent rage. ”

“ Taterleg was going to Glendora that night. He pressed Lambert to join him.
"A man's got to take a day off sometimes to rest his face and hands," he argued. "Them fellers can't run off any stock tonight, and if they do they can't git very far away with 'em before we'd be on their necks. They know that; they're as safe as if we had 'em where they belong." ”

“ Breaking from the Tatar warriors who held his arms, he fell on his knees.
“Mercy, great lord,” he bellowed. “Oh, mercy. Grant me royal clemency if I have offended. Make me a captive, but spare my life!”
This being interpreted, Tamerlane smiled.
“Verily,” he said shortly, “the Frank is frightened by my face. Nay, Timur the Tatar has harmed no ambassador. Fear not, but join in our feast.”
He signed to the men who held the visitors. Soranzi, a-tremble with anxiety, took this to be a signal for their destruction. ”

“ Never existed! William Tell! William Tell a myth! And it was a painter charged with the duty of decorating the Tellsplatte who said that calmly. He hated him as if for a sacrilege; he hated those learned men, and this denying, demolishing impious age, which respects nothing, neither fame nor grandeur—coquin de sort!
And so, two hundred, three hundred years hence, when Tartarin was spoken of there would always be Astier-Réhus and Professor Schwanthalers to deny that he ever existed—a Provençal myth! ”

“ Would he go or would he not? “I’ll lay he will!”—and “I’ll wager he won’t!” It was the event of the week. In the upshot, Tartarin did not depart, but the matter redounded to his credit none the less. Going or not going to Shanghai was all one to Tarascon. Tartarin’s journey was so much talked about that people got to believe he had done it and returned, and at the club in the evening members would actually ask for information on life at Shanghai, the manners and customs and climate, about opium, and commerce. ”

“ At our establishment there were several Tatars to milk the mares and make the kumys. The wife of one of them, a Tatar beauty, was the professional taster, who issued her orders like an autocrat on that delicate point. She never condescended to work, and it was our opinion that she ought to devote herself to dress, in her many leisure hours, instead of lounging about in ugly calico sacks and petticoats, as hideous as though they had originated in a backwoods farm in New England. ”

“ This he did not try to explain to the Tatar, knowing that it was useless.
“See,” said the young Tatar again; “the standard advances. The wolf has shaken the dogs from his flanks.”
Michael saw that the masses of Tatars that had been stationary were moving forward now. It was almost imperceptible at first, this hive-like movement of men waiting grimly to slay.
Tamerlane's center had stood fast for three hours. Bayezid's last attack had been broken. ”

“ Each time the Tartharol reply, “Purs ad!” The Teivali man then touches the remains with the bow and arrow. He puts down the tadri on the ground, and the calf is driven away from the spot on which it had been standing. As soon as it begins to move all present, Tartharol and Teivaliol, cry out, “ua! ua!” and fall down and touch the earth with their foreheads. The bell is then removed from the calf, which is not killed, [377] but is allowed to go free. The bell (tukulir mani) is kept by the Kotas or Badagas till it is required by the Todas for another funeral. ”

“ Yes, there were; she had a sister with her, said Tatterhood. Her, too, they wanted to see, but Tatterhood said "No,"—
"No one shall see her, unless the King comes himself," she said; and so she began to gallop about on her goat till the deck thundered again.
So when the servants got back to the palace, and told what they had seen and heard down at the ship, the King was for setting out at once, that he might see the lassie that rode on the goat. When he got down, Tatterhood led out her sister, and she was so fair and gentle, the King fell over head and ears in love with her as he stood. ”

“ AT Milianah, Tartarin of Tarascon alighted, leaving the stage-coach to continue its way towards the South.
Two days’ rough jolting, two nights spent with eyes open to spy out of window if there were not discoverable the dread figure of a lion in the fields beyond the road—so much sleeplessness well deserved some hours repose. Besides, if we must tell everything, since his misadventure with Bombonnel, the outspoken Tartarin felt ill at ease, notwithstanding his weapons, his terrifying visage, and his red cap, before the Orleansville photographer and the two ladies fond of the military. ”

“ The door opened. A negress appeared, who conducted the gentlemen, without uttering a word, across the narrow inner courtyard into a small cool room, where the lady awaited them, reclining on a low ottoman. At first glance she appeared smaller and stouter than the Moorish damsel met in the omnibus by the Tarasconian. In fact, was it really the same? But the doubt merely flashed through Tartarin’s brain like a stroke of lightning. ”

“ Everybody turned pale around the board: the gentlemen looking at one another and wagging their heads, the ladies shutting their eyes with pretty screams of fright, the elderly men combatively brandishing their canes; and, in the side apartments, the little boys, who had been put to bed betimes, were greatly startled by the sudden outcries and imitated gun-fire, and screamed for lights. Meanwhile, Tartarin did not start. ”