"Who are those men bowing? Do you know them? They must take me for
somebody else."

"Those men bowing" were two no less important characters than Lord
Bearwarden and Tom Ryfe, the latter in the act of selling the former
a horse. Such transactions, for some mysterious reason, always take
place in the morning, and whatever arguments may be adduced against
a too enthusiastic worship of the noble animal, at least it promotes
early rising.

Tom Ryfe was one of those men rarely seen in the saddle or on the box,
but who, nevertheless, always seem to have a horse to dispose of,
whatever be the kind required. Hack, hunter, pony, phaeton-horse, he
was either possessor of the very animal you wanted, or could suit you
with it at twenty-four hours' notice; yet if you met him by accident
riding in the Park, he was sure to tell you he had been mounted by
a friend; if you saw him driving a team--and few could handle four
horses in a crowded thoroughfare with more neatness and precision--you
might safely wager it was from the box of another man's coach.

He was supposed to be a very fine rider over a country, and there were
vague traditions of his having gone exceedingly well through great
runs on special occasions; but these exploits had obviously lost
nothing of their interest in the process of narration, and were indeed
enhanced by that obscurity which increases the magnitude of most
things, in the moral as in the material world.

Mr. Ryfe knew all the sporting men about London, but not their wives.
He was at home on the Downs and the Heath, in the pavilion at Lord's,
and behind the traps of the Red House. He dined pretty frequently at