“Well out of this business about Miss Kettering,” said the latter, who was becoming more communicative since he had found so little difficulty in speaking his mind to Blanche on a previous occasion. “You’ve heard of the smash? Not a penny, after all. Downright swindling, I call it--that old Bounce must be a deep one. They tell me that, except the life-interest of the house in Grosvenor Square, she hasn’t a brass farthing. It’s frightful to think of,” added the old head on young shoulders, scanning with rigid attention his companion’s face, in which concern was more apparent than surprise. “Poor thing, poor thing” rejoined Lacquers; “I had no idea it was so bad as that. They told me she was sure to have Newton-Hollows, at any rate. She must feel it sadly, poor girl; I wonder how she looks since it all came out.” “Oh, I fancy very few people know it as yet,” suggested Sir Ascot, who was somewhat uncharitable in his conclusions. “I daresay they’ll try to brazen it out, at least till the end of the season. They may if they like, for all I care. I never knew any good come of these _half-bred_ ones, and _I’ll_ have nothing more to do with them!” Lacquers heard as though he heard him not. He was trying to think, and his well-cut features were gathered into an expression of hopeless perplexity, at which his companion could scarce forbear laughing outright. At last he had recourse to the never-failing moustache; and drawing inspiration from its touch, he began-- “Uppy, you’re a safe fellow--eh?--wouldn’t throw a fellow over, and put him in the hole, you know. You’ve got some brains, too--made a capital book on the Ascot Stakes. Now you understand finance and arithmetic, and that--what should _you_ say a married fellow could live upon? Of course he wouldn’t require so many luxuries as a single one; but what do you think, now, a fellow like _me_, for instance, could do with?” Sir Ascot looked completely taken aback. “Why, you’d never be such a fool as to think of----” “That’s neither here nor there, old boy,” interrupted Lacquers; “of course if I _do_ you shall have the earliest intelligence. But come, here’s a book and a pencil; let’s see how the thing would work with good management and strict economy. _Strict economy_, you know, of course.” Lacquers had a great idea, _in theory_, of strict economy. So the young man sat down, and went deep into the various items of rent, and stable expenses, and opera-boxes and pin-money, and cigars and travelling; Sir Ascot arriving at the conclusion that a quiet couple might manage to exist upon something over two thousand a year; whilst Lacquers thought it was to be done, with _strict economy_, of course, for about five hundred less; but as they both entirely overlooked an indispensable item termed “housekeeping,” we think it needless to record their calculations for the benefit of the inexperienced.