horse, I have some for myself; and I should rather like to be out of this
rain as soon as possible."

"Oh, ah! you have no cloak. I forgot that; to be sure--to be sure, let us
trot on, gently--though--gently. Well, Sir, as I was saying, horses are
not so swift as they were. The breed is bought up by the French! I
remember once, Johnny Courtland and I, after dining at my house, till the
champagne had played the dancing-master to our brains, mounted our
horses, and rode twenty miles for a cool thousand the winner. I lost it,
Sir, by a hair's breadth; but I lost it on purpose; it would have half
ruined Johnny Courtland to have paid me, and he had that delicacy, Sir,--
he had that delicacy, that he would not have suffered me to refuse taking
his money,--so what could I do, but lose on purpose? You see I had no
alternative!"

"Pray, Sir," said Walter, charmed and astonished at so rare an instance
of the generosity of human friendships--"Pray, Sir, did I not hear you
called Sir Peter, by the landlord of the little inn? can it be, since you
speak so familiarly of Mr. Courtland, that I have the honour to address
Sir Peter Hales?"

"Indeed that is my name," replied the gentleman, with some surprise in
his voice. "But I have never had the honour of seeing you before."

"Perhaps my name is not unfamiliar to you," said Walter. "And among my
papers I have a letter addressed to you from my uncle Rowland Lester.

"God bless me!" cried Sir Peter, "What Rowy!--well, indeed I am overjoyed
to hear of him. So you are his nephew? Pray tell me all about him, a
wild, gay, rollicking fellow still, eh?" Always fencing, sa--sa! or