duced against
a too enthusiastic worship of the noble animal, at least it promotes
early rising.

Tom Ryfe was one of those men rarely seen in the saddle or on the box,
but who, nevertheless, always seem to have a horse to dispose of,
whatever be the kind required. Hack, hunter, pony, phaeton-horse, he
was either possessor of the very animal you wanted, or could suit you
with it at twenty-four hours' notice; yet if you met him by accident
riding in the Park, he was sure to tell you he had been mounted by
a friend; if you saw him driving a team--and few could handle four
horses in a crowded thoroughfare with more neatness and precision--you
might safely wager it was from the box of another man's coach.

He was supposed to be a very fine rider over a country, and there were
vague traditions of his having gone exceedingly well through great
runs on special occasions; but these exploits had obviously lost
nothing of their interest in the process of narration, and were indeed
enhanced by that obscurity which increases the magnitude of most
things, in the moral as in the material world.

Mr. Ryfe knew all the sporting men about London, but not their wives.
He was at home on the Downs and the Heath, in the pavilion at Lord's,
and behind the traps of the Red House. He dined pretty frequently at
the barracks of the household troops, welcome to the genial spirits
of his entertainers, chiefly for those qualities with which they
themselves credited him; and he called Bearwarden "My lord," wherefore
that nobleman thought him a snob, and would perhaps have considered
him a still greater if he had _not_. The horse in question showed
good points and fine action. Mr. Ryfe walked, trotted, cantered,
and finally reined him up at the rails on which Lord Bearwarden was
leaning.

"Rather a flat-catcher, Tom," said that nobleman, between the whiffs
of a cigar. "Too much action for a hunter, and too little body. He
wouldn't carry my weight if the ground was deep, though he's not a bad
goer, I'll admit."

"Exactly what I said at first, my lord," answered Tom, slipping the
reins through his fingers, and letting the horse reach over the iron
bar against his chest to crop the tufts of grass beneath, an attitude
in which his fine shoulders and liberty of frame showed to great
advantage. "I never thought he was a fourteen-stone horse, and I never
told you so."

"And I never told _you_ I rode fourteen stone, did I?" replied Lord
Bearwarden,