"Oh, I'll manage him, I will manage him," answered Ned Hayward, who had carried so many points in his life by his dashing straightforwardness, that he had very little doubt of his own powers. "Come along, and we will see. Let us saunter out into the yard, in a quiet careless way, as if we were sentimental and loved moonlight. We shall find him somewhere rubbing down his horses, or drinking a pint on the bench." The two gentlemen accordingly took their hats and issued forth, Ned Hayward leading the way first out into the street through a glass-door, and then round into the yard by an archway. This man[oe]uvre was intended to elude the vigilant eyes of Mr. Groomber, and was so far successful that the landlord, being one of that small class of men who can take a hint, did not come out after them to offer his services, though he saw the whole proceeding, and while he was uncorking sherry, or portioning out tea, or making up a bill, kept one eye--generally the right--turned towards a window that looked in the direction of the stables. Before those stables the bright moon was laying out her silver carpeting, though, truth to say, she might have found a cleaner floor to spread it on; and there too paraded up and down our friends, Ned Hayward and Mr. Beauchamp, looking for the post-boy who had driven Mrs. Clifford and her daughter, but not perceiving him in any direction. Ned Hayward began to suspect he had reckoned without his host. The man was not rubbing down his horses, he was not drinking a pint on the bench, he was not smoking a pipe at the inn door. "Well," he said at length, "I will look into all the stables to see after my horse. It is but right I should attend to his supper now I have had my own, and perhaps we may find what we are looking for on the road. Let us wait awhile, however, till that one-eyed ostler is passed, or he will tell us where the horse is, and spoil our man[oe]uvre." And, walking on, he pointed out to Beauchamp a peculiar spot upon the moon's surface, and commented upon it with face upturned till the inconvenient ostler had gone by.