Jasper, whose actual age may have been six or at the most seven and twenty, was one of those men of whom it is puzzling to say whether they look, for their years, very youthful or surprisingly old. He was below the middle height, and his smooth pale face seemed at first sight almost boyish; but the cold glance of the small blue eyes, the firmness of the compressed lips, and the tell-tale lines that were faintly visible at the angles of both eyes and mouth, were not such as we associate with ingenuous youth. Captain Denzil (Jasper had at an early age attained, thanks to the golden ladder by which the offspring of wealthy men were wont to climb, his captaincy in the light cavalry regiment to which he had till recently belonged) had proved himself an expensive son to Sir Sykes. His fair moustache, pallid face, and drawling accent were well known on race-courses, and quite familiar in those darkened rooms at fashionable clubs where the fickle goddess Chance is worshipped by card-players around their lamp-lit green tables, while it is honest daylight in the workaday world beyond. He rode into the yard and dismounted; but instead of immediately entering the house, lingered to exchange a thoughtful word or two as to the signs of an incipient spavin in the off fore-leg of the fiery chestnut which he had been riding. ‘Knew he wasn't sound of course, when I bought him,’ remarked the captain, with calm philosophy. ‘A friend's horse never is, especially when the friend is such an impulsive open-hearted fellow as Charley Granger. But he was cheap, and he has a turn of speed, and I've entered him for the Pebworth Steeplechase, and don't want to pay forfeit. So see to the bandages, Phillips, will you; and don't have him out, except for gentle exercise on the soft, this fortnight. We mustn't neglect that leg.’ Jasper was not one of those who care for a horse, as some of us do, for the horse's own sake, and out of genuine love for the noblest of the dumb servants that do the bidding of mankind. But he did regard the genus _equus_ as a very valuable instrument for gambling purposes, and as such to be tended with jealous care and helped, when convenient, to victory on the turf.