ere's a crown. I 'd have made it a
sovereign if it had been his neck you 'd gone over."

"Better luck next time, sir, and thank you," said the man, as he drove
away.

The maid was yet knocking for admission when Grog arrived at the door.
"Captain Fisk, sir,--Captain Fisk, there 's a gent as says--"

"That will do," said Davis, taking the key from her hand and opening the
door for himself.

"Old Grog himself, as I'm a living man!" cried a tall, much whiskered
and moustached fellow, who was reading a "Bell's Life" at the fire.

"Ay, Master Fisk,--no other," said Davis, as he shook his friend
cordially by the hand. "I 've had precious work to find you out I was
up at Duke Street, then they sent me to the Adelphi; after that I tried
Ling's, in the Hay-market, and it was a waiter there--"

"Joe," broke in the other.

"Exactly. Joe told me that I might chance upon you here."

"Well, I 'm glad to see you, old fellow, and have a chat about long
ago," said Fisk, as he placed a square green bottle and some glasses on
the table. How well you 're looking, too; not an hour older than when I
saw you four years ago!"

"Ain't I, though!" muttered Grog. "Ay, and like the racers, I 've got
weight for age, besides. I'm a stone and a half heavier than I ought to
be, and there's nothing worse than that to a fellow that wants to work
with his head and sleep with one eye open."

"You can't complain much on that score, Kit; you never made so grand a
stroke in your life as that last one,--the marriage, I mean."

"It was n't bad," said Davis, as he mixed his liquor; "nor was it,
exactly, the kind of hazard that every man could make. Beecher was a
troublesome one,--a rare troublesome one; nobody could ever say when he
'd run straight."

"I always thought him rotten," said the other, angrily.

"Well, he is and he isn't," said Grog, deliberately.

"He has got no pluck," said Fisk, indignantly.

"He has quite enough."

"Enough--enough for what?"

"Enough for a lord. Look here, Master Fisk, so long as you have not to
gain your living by anything, it is quite sufficient if you can do it
moderately well. Many a first-rate amateur there is, who wouldn't be
thought a tenth-rate artist."

"I 'd like to know where you had been to-day if it was n't for your
pluck," said Fisk, doggedly.

"In a merchant's office in the City, belike, on a hundred and twenty
pounds a year; a land steward down in Dorsetshire, at half the salary;
skipper