An Old Groom
A life-time spent in a particular occupation gives a man a character- istic way of handling the tools of his trade. The way old W. handled a hammer convinced me that he had been a blacksmith at one time, although in his old age he is a jobbing gardener. It was a sound and not his way of working that tad me Ben had been a groom: He was polishing a big hackney hire outside the garage. As he worked he " hissed," and I stopped beside him and asked him if he had worked with horses. He was delighted that I recognised him as something more than a driver of a " stinking " old car, as he put it. A groom blows through his teeth when working to keep the dust from getting down his throat. Ben spent the greater part of his life in service as a groom in charge of cobs and hunters. He is not sentimental about the disappearance of the horse, but he is loyal to his first love, saying that he is sure the country will need them one day if things go wrong. I wonder what would happen on farms if we were deprived of supplies of oil and petrol.
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