nk it to stop, because
collisions shake his trumps together.' Man thought us mad; took tenner
though, shunted us to one side out of the noise, and we played two
rubbers more before they'd repaired the damage and sent us on to town."

And the Seraph took a long-drawn whiff from his silver meerschaum, and
then a deep draught of soda and brandy to refresh himself after the
narrative--biggest, best-tempered, and wildest of men in or out of the
Service, despite the angelic character of his fair-haired head, and blue
eyes that looked as clear and as innocent as those of a six-year-old
child.

"Not the first time by a good many that you've 'shunted off the
straight,' Seraph?" laughed Cecil, substituting an amber mouth-piece for
his half-finished cheroot. "I've been having a good-night look at the
King. He'll stay."

"Of course he will," chorused half a dozen voices.

"With all our pots on him," added the Seraph. "He's too much of a
gentleman to put us all up a tree; he knows he carries the honor of the
Household."

"There are some good mounts, there's no denying that," said Chesterfield
of the Blues (who was called Tom for no other reason than that it was
entirely unlike his real name of Adolphus), where he was curled up
almost invisible, except for the movement of the jasmine stick of his
chibouque. "That brute, Day Star, is a splendid fencer, and for a brook
jumper, it would be heard to best Wild Geranium, though her shoulders
are not quite what they ought to be. Montacute, too, can ride a good
thing, and he's got one in Pas de Charge."

"I'm not much afraid of Monti, he makes too wild a burst first; he never
saves on atom," yawned Cecil, with the coils of his hookah bubbling
among the rose-water; "the man I'm afraid of is that fellow from the
Tenth; he's as light as a feather and as hard as steel. I watched him
yesterday going over the water, and the horse he'll ride for Trelawney
is good enough to beat even the King if he's properly piloted."

"You haven't kept yourself in condition, Beauty," growled "Tom," with
the chibouque in his mouth, "else nothing could give you the go-by. It's
tempting Providence to go in for the Gilt Vase after such a December and
January as you spent in Paris. Even the week you've been in the Shires
you haven't trained a bit; you've been waltzing or playing baccarat till
five in the morning, and taking no end of sodas after to bring you right
for the meet at nine. If a man will drink champ