Lord Rockingham's compliments and say he'll thank 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