"I don't want to depend upon it," said the other, snappishly. "I shall not venture five pounds on the race. I remember once something of an implicit reliance on a piece of information of the kind."
"Well! you know how that happened. I gave Hilyard's valet fifty pounds to get a peep at his master's betting-book, and the fellow told Hilyard, who immediately made up a book express, and let us all in for a smart sum. I am sure I was the heaviest loser in the affair."
"So you ought, too. The contrivance was a very rascally one, and deserved its penalty."
"The expression is not parliamentary, my Lord," said Linton, with a slight flushing of the cheek, "and so I must call you to order."
"Is Turcoman to run?" asked Lord Charles, negligently.
"No. I have persuaded Cashel to buy him, and he has taken him out of training."
"Well, you really go very straightforward in your work, Linton. I must say you are as plucky a rogue as I 've ever heard of. Pray, now, how do you manage to keep up your influence over that youth? He always appears to me to be a rash-headed, wilful kind of fellow there would be no guiding."
"Simply, by always keeping him in occupation. There are people like spavined horses, and one must always get them warm in their work, and they never show the blemish. Now, I have been eternally alongside of Cashel. One day buying horses,--another, pictures,--another time it was furniture, carriages, saddlery,--till we have filled that great old house of the ex-Chancellor's with an assemblage of objects, living and inanimate, it would take a month to chronicle."
"Some kind friend may open his eye to all this one of these days, Master Linton; and then--"
"By that time," said Linton, "his clairvoyance will be too late. Like many a man I 've known, he 'll be a capital judge of claret when his cellar has been emptied."
"You were a large winner last night, Linton?"
"Twelve hundred and fifty. It might have been double the amount, but I 've taken a hint from Splasher's Physiology. He says nothing encourages a plethora like small bleedings. And you, Charley; what did _you_ do?"
"Sixty pounds!" replied he, shortly. "I never venture out of my depth."
"And you mean to infer that I do, my Lord," said Linton, trying to smile, while evidently piqued by the remark. "Well, I plead guilty to the charge. I have a notion in my head that seven feet of water drowns a man just as effectually as seven hundred fathoms in the blue Atlantic. Now _you_ know, as well as I, that neither of us could afford to lose sixty pounds thrice running; so let us not talk of venturing out of our depth, which, I take it, would be to paddle in very shallow water indeed."