offensive. I only
meant to say that they call _me_ a flat; but hang me if I'd have let
them off as cheaply as you did."

"Then they're at perfect liberty to call me a flat also," said Conway,
laughing. "Indeed, I suspect I have given them ample reason to think me
one."

The look of compassionate pity Beecher bestowed on him as he uttered
these words was as honest as anything in his nature could be.

It was in vain Bella tried to get back the conversation to the events
of the campaign, to the scenes wherein poor Jack was an actor. Beecher's
perverse activity held them chained to incidents which, to him, embraced
all that was worth living for. "You must have had some capital things in
your time, though. You had some race-horses, and were well in with Tom
Nolan's set," said he to Conway.

"Shall I tell you the best match I ever had,--at least, the one gave me
most pleasure?"

"Do, by all means," said Beecher, eagerly, "though I guess it already.
It was against Vickersley, even for ten thousand, at York."

"No," said the other, smiling.

"Well, then, it was the Cotswold,--four miles in two heats. You won it
with a sister to Ladybird."

"Nor that, either; though by these reminiscences you show me how
accurately you have followed my humble fortunes."

"There 's not a man has done anything on the turf for fifty years
I can't give you his history; not a horse I won't tell you all his
performances, just as if you were reading it out of the 'Racing
Calendar.' As 'Bell's Life' said t' other day, 'If Annesley Beecher
can't answer that question,'--and it was about Running Rein,--'no man
in England can.' I'm 'The Fellow round the corner' that you always see
alluded to in 'Bell.'"

"Indeed!" exclaimed Conway, with assumed deference.

"That I am,--Kellett knows it. Ask old Paul there,--ask Grog,--ask
any one you like, whether A. B. is up to a thing or two. But we 're
forgetting this match,--the best thing you said you ever had."

"I 'm not so sure you 'll be of my mind when you hear it," said
Conway, smiling. "It was a race we had t' other day in the Crimea,--a
steeplechase, over rather a stiff course, with Spanish ponies; and I
rode against Lord Broodale, Sir Harry Curtis, and Captain Marsden, and
won five pounds and a dozen of champagne. My comrades betted something
like fifty shillings on the match, and there would have been a general
bankruptcy in the company if I had lost. Poor Jack mortgaged his watch
and a pilot