‘There are a good many bad lots going about in high society, without any brand upon ’em either. He’s not a man I’d receive in my house, if I had a house.’ ‘But you haven’t, you see,’ said Piper, testily. ‘That makes all the difference. Perhaps if you had a big house like this, and wanted to fill it with pleasant people, you’d lower your standard of morality a bit. It’s all very well for Diogenes to be particular about what company he keeps. He’s only got his tub to fill, and he can fill that himself.’ ‘Don’t let’s beat about the bush, Piper. Would you like your wife to receive a present--something to the tune of a couple of hundred pounds--from such a man as Captain Standish?’ ‘I wouldn’t let her receive such a present from any man alive, and she knows it. Her own sense must tell her,’ exclaimed Piper, getting warm. ‘You can’t always trust to a woman’s sense, particularly when she’s young and pretty,’ said the cynical Chumney. ‘I say your wife has received such a present--though I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt, and say she doesn’t know anything about it,--and by so doing has made you and herself the talk of the Great Yafford club.’ ‘What present?’ asked Piper, pale with rage. ‘The horse she rides.’ ‘That’s the biggest lie that’s been told at the club for a long time, though I’ve known ’em to tell some jolly big ones there. The horse my wife rides was given to her by me. I wrote a cheque for a hundred pounds, and put it in her hand. All Standish did was to choose the horse at Tattersall’s.’ ‘Do you think such a horse as that is to be bought for a hundred pounds? Your friends at the club know all about the horse. It was the gem of Sir Lionel Hawtree’s stud, and sold for three hundred and thirty guineas. The difference between your cheque and the auction price was a gift from Captain Standish to your wife. You have boasted of getting Erebus for a hundred pounds, and have been laughed at by men who know all about the horse. I had heard some queer things said, but I only learned the real state of the case last night.’ ‘I don’t believe it,’ exclaimed Piper. ‘Why should Captain Standish spend his money on a horse for my wife?’ ‘I don’t know why, but I know he has done it,’ returned Chumney. ‘Read that!’ He handed Mr. Piper a cutting from _Bell’s Life_. ‘That’s from a paper two Sundays old,’ he said, ‘but I only got it last night.’ It was the description of a sale of hunters at Tattersall’s. The following paragraph was marked at the side in red ink:-- ‘One of the gems of the stud was Erebus, a lady’s hack, fifteen two, rising six, black, without a white hair about him, and perfect in every point. This horse was knocked down to Captain Standish, at three hundred and thirty guineas, after a lively competition.’ ‘How do I know it is the same horse he bought for my wife?’ asked Mr. Piper, when he had read the paragraph.