"Now for it," said Walter, rising and standing erect, with his back to the fire. "Yesterday," he continued, "as I was riding out before dinner, I met Saunders and Gregson on horseback. Gregson was riding Rosebud.--`Well,' said Gregson, `is Rosebud to be yours?'--`Can't afford it,' I said; `a hundred guineas is too much. I haven't got the money to spare.'--`No, of course not,' he said; `but you can spare a guinea.'--`Yes,' I replied; `but that won't buy Rosebud.'--`No,' he said; `but it will give you a chance of getting her for a guinea.'--`That's one way,' I said; `but it don't seem the right one to me. What do you say to swopping Rosebud for my pony? then you'll have an equivalent, at least if you think so.'--Saunders and he looked at one another as if they had seen a ghost; and then I said, `Perhaps I can work out the value. Let me see. Will you give me fifty guineas a year if I take the place of groom to you? I may earn Rosebud that way in two years if you give her to me instead of wages.'--My two companions began to whisper to one another, and to stare at me as if I'd just come out of an Egyptian mummy-case.--`What's up now?' I said.--`We can't make you out,' said Saunders; `whatever are you driving at?'--`Oh, I'll soon make that clear!' I said. `The fact is, gentlemen, I've been led to the conclusion that raffling isn't right; that it's only a sort of gambling; that, in fact, there are only three honest ways of my getting Rosebud. One is by giving an equivalent in money or something else; but I can't afford the hundred guineas, and you won't take my pony in exchange. The second way is by earning her--that is, by my doing so much work as will be of the same value; but it wouldn't suit you nor me for me to take the place of your groom for a couple of years. And the third way is for me to have her as a free gift; but I'm not so sanguine as to suppose that you mean to give her to me right out.'--`And where have you got all this precious nonsense from?' cried Saunders.--`In the first place,' I answered, `you're right about the "precious," but wrong about the "nonsense;" it's precious truth. In the next place, I have learned these views on the subject of raffles from my brother Amos.'--Then there _was_ a hullaballoo. `Your brother Amos!' they shouted out, as if my dear brother was the very last person in the world that anything good or sensible could be expected from.--`Yes,' I said, as cool as an icicle, `my brother Amos. I suppose if a thing's right, it's as good when it comes from him as from any one else.'--They were both taken aback, I can tell you. But I stuck to my point. They tried to chaff me out of it by saying, `Well, I would be a man if I were you, and have an opinion of my own.'--`I have an opinion of my own,' said I, `and it's none the less my own because it's the same as my brother's.'--`He daren't move a step by himself now for that brother of his,' sneered Saunders.--To this I