“Oh, we’ll manage him somehow,” observed Bankhead confidently, “only we’ve a large party to-night, and want all the spare stalls we can raise, but they’ll put ‘im up somewhere,” added he, “they’ll put ‘im up somewhere,” observing as before, “it’s only for one night—only for one night. Now won’t you alight and walk in,” continued he, motioning Monsieur to descend, and Jack having intimated that his lor vould compliment their politeness if they took vell care of his ‘orse, conceived he had done all that a faithful domestic could under the circumstances, and leaving the issue in the hands of fate, alighted from his vehicle, and entering by the back way, proceeded to exchange family “particulars” with Mr. Bankhead in the pantry. Now the Pangburn Park stables were originally very good, forming a crescent at the back of the house, with coach-houses and servants’ rooms intervening, but owing to the trifling circumstance of allowing the drains to get choked, they had fallen into disrepute. At the back of the crescent were some auxiliary stables, worse of course than the principal range, into which they put night-visitors’ horses, and those whose owners were rash enough to insist upon Sir Moses fulfilling his offers of hospitality to them. At either end of these latter were loose boxes, capable of being made into two-stalled stables, only these partitions were always disappearing, and the roofs had long declined turning the weather; but still they were better than nothing, and often formed receptacles for sly cabby’s, or postboys who preferred the chance of eleemosynary fare at Sir Moses’s to the hand in the pocket hospitality of the Red Lion, at Fillerton Hill, or the Mainchance Arms, at Duckworth Bridge. Into the best of these bad boxes the gig mare was put, and as there was nothing to get in the house, Tom Cowlick took his departure as soon as she had eaten her surreptitious feed of oats. The pampered Napoleon the Great, the horse that required all the warmth and coddling in the world, was next introduced, fine Billy alighting from his back in the yard with all the unconcern that he would from one of Mr. Splint’s or Mr. Spavins’s week day or hour jobs. Indeed, one of the distinguishing features between the new generation of sportsmen and the old, is the marked indifference of the former to the comforts of their horses compared to that shown by the old school, who always looked to their horses before themselves, and not unfrequently selected their inns with reference to the stables. Now-a-days, if a youth gives himself any concern about the matter, it will often only be with reference to the bill, and he will frequently ride away without ever having been into the stable.