fter that dreadful girl in Lever's Novel); and I
told him frankly that it was, if he meant that I had sooner break in
a thorough-bred for myself, even though I had a fall or two in the
process, than jog along on the most finished little pony on earth, who
would never go out of an amble. Lord Chalk may be very finished, and
learned, and excellent, and so forth: but, _ma chere_, I want, not a
white rabbit (of which he always reminds me), but a hero, even though
he be a naughty one. I always fancy people must be very little if they
can be finished off so rapidly; if there was any real verve in them,
they would take somewhat longer to grow. Lord Chalk would do very well
to bind in Russian leather, and put on one's library shelves, to be
consulted when one forgot a date; but really even your Ulysses of a
doctor--provided, of course, he turned out a prince in disguise, and
don't leave out his h's--would be more to the taste of your naughtiest
of sisters."

CHAPTER XII.

A PEER IN TROUBLE.

Somewhere in those days, so it seems, did Mr. Bowie call unto himself
a cab at the barrack-gate, and, dressed in his best array, repair
to the wilds of Brompton, and request to see either Claude or Mrs.
Mellot.

Bowie is an ex-Scots-Fusilier, who, damaged by the kick of a horse,
has acted as valet, first to Scoutbush's father, and next to Scoutbush
himself. He is of a patronising habit of mind, as befits a tolerably
"leeterary" Scotsman of forty-five years of age and six-feet three in
height, who has full confidence in the integrity of his own virtue,
the infallibility of his own opinion, and the strength of his own
right arm; for Bowie, though he has a rib or two "dinged in," is
mighty still as Theseus' self; and both astonished his red-bearded
compatriots, and won money for his master, by his prowess in the late
feat of arms at Holland House.

Mr. Bowie is asked to walk into Sabina's boudoir (for Claude is out in
the garden), to sit down, and deliver his message: which he does after
a due military salute, sitting bolt upright in his chair, and in a
solemn and sonorous voice.

"Well, madam, it's just this, that his lordship would be very glad to
see ye and Mr. Mellot, for he's vary ill indeed, and that's truth; and
if he winna tell ye the cause, then I will--and it's just a' for love
of this play-acting body here, and more's the pity."

"More's the pity, indeed!"

"And it's my opeenion the puir laddie will just die, if n