"Does anybody know anything about that brown horse of Vavasor's ?" said Maxwell.

"I saw him coming into the yard yesterday with that old groom of his." "He had a brown horse last season," said Grindley;--"a little thing that went very fast, but wasn't quite sound on the road." "That was a mare," said Maxwell, "and he sold her to Cinquebars."* [*Ah, my friend, from whom I have borrowed this scion of the nobility! Had he been left with us he would have forgiven me my little theft, and now that he has gone I will not change the name.] "For a hundred and fifty," said Calder Jones, "and she wasn't worth the odd fifty." "He won seventy with her at Leamington," said Maxwell, "and I doubt whether he'd take his money now." "Is Cinquebars coming down here this year ?" "I don't know," said Maxwell.

"I hope not.

He's the best fellow in the world, but he can't ride, and he don't care for hunting, and he makes more row than any fellow I ever met.

I wish some fellow could tell me something about that fellow's brown horse." "I'd never buy a horse of Vavasor's if I were you," said Grindley.
"He never has anything that's all right all round." "And who has ?" said Maxwell, as he took into his plate a second mutton chop, which had just been brought up hot into the room especially for him.