horses, not of cats, and he never bullied and
seldom abused his horses as he abused and bullied his fellow men and
women. This was the result of his experience. He had learnt from it that
he might bully and abuse his human dependents with impunity. As a boy he
had also bullied and abused his horses. But in his eighteenth year he had
been savaged by a young horse he had maltreated, and the lesson had stuck
in his mind. It was a simple, obtuse mind, but it had formed the theory
that he got more out of human beings, more deference and service, by
bullying them and more out of horses by treating them kindly. Besides, he
liked horses.

Mr. Manley did not set about answering the letters at once. He reflected
for a while on the likeness between Hutchings and his master. He thought
the physical likeness of little interest. There was a whole clan of
Hutchingses in the villages and woods round the castle, the bulk of them
gamekeepers; and there had been for generations. Mr. Manley was much more
interested in the resemblance in character between Hutchings and Lord
Loudwater. Hutchings, probably under the pressure of circumstances, was
much less of a bore than his master, but quite as much of a bully. Also,
he was more intelligent, and consequently more dangerous. Mr. Manley
would on no account have had him look at him with the intense malignity
with which he had looked at his master. Doubtless the butler had far
greater self-control than Lord Loudwater; but if ever he did lose it it
would be uncommonly bad for Lord Loudwater.

It would be interesting to find in the Loudwater archives the common
ancestor to whom they both cast so directly back. He fancied that it must
be the third Baron. At any rate, both had his protruding blue eyes,
softened in his portrait doubtless by the natural politeness of the
fashionable painter. Was it worth his while to look up the record of the
third Lord Loudwater? He decided that, if he found himself at sufficient
leisure, he would. Then he decided that he was glad that Hutchins was
going; the butler had shown him but little civility. Then he set about
answering the letters.

When he had finished them he took up the stockbroker's cheque and
considered it with a thoughtful frown. He had never before seen a cheque
for so large a sum; and it interested him. Then he wrote a short note of
instructions to Lord Loudwater's bankers. The ink in his fountain-pen ran
out as he came to the end of it, and he si