“Conway--Conway?” repeated Beecher, aloud; “we have fortieth cousins, Conways. There was a fellow called Conway in the Twelfth Lancers that went a tremendous pace; they nicknamed him the 'Smasher,' I don't know why. Do you?” said he, addressing the soldier. “I 've heard it was from an awkward habit he had of putting his heel on snobs.” “Oh! you know him, perhaps?” said Beecher, affectedly. “Why, as I was the man myself, I ought, according to the old adage, to say I knew but little of him.” “You Conway of the Twelfth! the same that owned Brushwood and Lady Killer, that won the Riddlesworth?” “You're calling up old memories to me,” said the youth, smiling, “which, after all, I 'd just as soon forget.” “And you were an officer in the Lancers!” exclaimed Kellett, eagerly. “Yes; I should have had my troop by this if I hadn't owned those fortunate three-year-olds Mr. Beecher has just reminded me of. Like many others, whom success on the turf has misled, I went on madly, quite convinced I had fortune with me.” “Ah!” said Beecher, moralizing, “there's no doing a good stroke of work without the legs. Cranley tried it, Hawchcome tried it, Ludborough tried it, but it won't do. As Grog Davis says, 'you must not ignore existing interests.'” “There's another name I have n't heard for many a year. What a scoundrel that fellow was! I 've good ground for believing that this Davis it was poisoned Sir Aubrey, the best horse I ever owned. Three men of his stamp would make racing a sport unfit for gentlemen.” “Miss Kellett, will you allow me?” said Beecher, offering his arm, and right well pleased that the announcement of dinner cut short the conversation. “A nice fellow that friend of your brother's,” muttered he, as he led her along; “but what a stupid thing to go and serve in the ranks! It's about the last step I 'd ever have thought of taking.” “I'm certain of it,” said Bella, with an assent so ready as to sound like flattery. As the dinner proceeded, old Kellett's astonishment continued to increase at the deference paid by Beecher to every remark that fell from Conway. The man who had twice won “the Bexley,” and all but won “the Elms;” he who owned Sir Aubrey, and actually took the odds against all “Holt's stable,” was no common celebrity. In vain was it Conway tried to lead the conversation to his friend Jack,--what they had seen, and where they had been together,--Beecher would bring them back to the Turf and the “Racing Calendar.” There were so many dark things he wanted to know, so much of secret history he hoped to be enlightened in; and whenever, as was often the case, Conway did not and could not give him the desired information, Beecher slyly intimated by a look towards Kellett that he was a deep fellow; while he muttered to himself, “Grog Davis would have it out of him, notwithstanding all his cunning.”