ll
to Lack-ington,--not that I 'd really enjoy the thing at any cost to
_him_,--but if I were--"

"Well, let's hear. What then?" cried Davis, as he filled the other's
glass to the top,--"what then?"

"Would n't I trot the coach along at a very different pace. It's not
poking about Italy, dining with smoke-dried cardinals and snuffy old
'marchesas,' I 'd be; but I 'd have such a stable, old fellow, with Jem
Bates to ride and Tom Ward to train them, and yourself, too, to counsel
me. Would n't we give Binsleigh and Hawksworth and the rest of them a
cold bath, eh?"

"That ain't the style of thing at all, Beecher," said Grog,
deprecatingly; "you ought to go in for the 'grand British nobleman
dodge,'--county interests, influence with a party, and a vote in the
Lords. If you were to try it, you 'd make a right good speech. It
wouldn't be one of those flowery things the Irish fellows do, but a
manly, straightforward, genuine English discourse."

"Do you really think so, Grog?" asked he, eagerly.

"I 'm sure of it I never mistook pace in my life; and I know what's in
you as well as if I saw it. The real fact is, you have a turn of speed
that you yourself have no notion of, but it will come out one of these
days if you 're attacked,--if they say anything about your life on the
turf, your former companions, or a word about the betting-ring."

The charm of this flattery was far more intoxicating than even the
copious goblets of Marcobrunner, and Beecher's flushed cheeks and
flashing eyes betrayed how it overpowered him. Davis went on:--

"You are one of those fellows that never show 'the stuff they 're made
of' till some injustice is done them,--eh?"

"True as a book!" chimed in Beecher.

"Take you fairly, and a child might lead you; but try it on to deny you
what you justly have a right to,--let them attempt to dictate to you,
and say, 'Do this, and don't do the other,'--little they know on what
back they 've put the saddle. You 'll give them such a hoist in the air
as they never expected!"

"How you read every line of me!" exclaimed Beecher, in ecstasy.

"And I 'll tell you more; there's not another man breathing knows
you but myself. They 've always seen you in petty scrapes and little
difficulties, pulling the devil by the last joint of his tail, as Jack
Bush says; but let them wait till you come out for a cup race,--the Two
Thousand Guinea Stakes,--then I'm not Kit Davis if you won't be one of
the first men in En