cad you keep about the place, Blandford?"

"If you don't go I'll kick you down the stairs!" cried Mr Pillans, by
this time in a rage.

Horace laughed. Mr Pillans was his senior in years and his superior in
inches, but there was nothing in his unhealthy face to dismay the sturdy
school-boy.

"Do you want me to try?" shouted Mr Pillans.

"Not unless you like," replied Horace, putting the money down on the
table and holding out his hand to Blandford.

The latter took it mechanically, too glad to see his visitor departing
to offer any obstacle.

"I'll look you up again some day," said Horace, "when your bulldog here
is chained up. When Reg and Harker are up this Christmas, we must all
get a day together. Good-night."

And he made for the door, brushing up against the outraged Mr Pillans
on his way.

"Take that for an impudent young beggar!" said the latter as he passed,
suiting the action to the word with a smart cuff directed at the
visitor's head.

Horace, however, was quick enough to ward it off.

"I thought you'd try that on," he said, with a laugh; "you're--"

But Mr Pillans, who had by this time worked himself into a fury by a
method known only to himself, cut short further parley by making a
desperate rush at him just as he reached the door.

The wary Horace had not played football for three seasons for nothing.
He quietly ducked, allowing his unscientific assailant to overbalance
himself, and topple head first on the lobby outside, at the particular
moment when the real owner of the racehorse and the real wine-merchant,
who had just arrived, reached the top of the stairs.

"Hullo, young fellow!" said the sporting gentleman; "practising
croppers, are you? or getting up an appetite? or what? High old times
you're having up here among you! Who's the kid?"

"Stop him!" gasped Pillans, picking himself up; "don't let him go! hold
him fast!"

The wine-merchant obligingly took possession of Horace by the collar,
and the company returned in solemn procession to the room.

"Now, then," said Horace's captor, "what's the row? Let's hear all
about it. Has he been collaring any of your spoons? or setting the
house on fire? or what? Who is he?"

"He's cheeked me!" said Pillans, brushing the dust off his coat. "Hold
him fast, will you? till I take it out of him."

But the horse-racer was far too much of a sportsman for that.

"No, no," said he, laughing; "make a mill of it and I'm your man. I'll