“I suppose old Bounce keeps a bright look-out though, don’t he?” rejoins his friend, who has all the appearance of a man that can make up his mind in a minute. “Yeees,” drawls Lacquers; “but it might be done by a fellow with some energy, you know; she _is_ engaged to young Kettering, her cousin--‘family pot,’ you know--and she’s very spooney on him; still, I’ve half a mind to try.” “Why, the cousin will probably break his neck in the course of the day; you can introduce me to-night at the ball. By the way, what are they betting about this young Kettering? Can he ride any?” “Not a yard,” replies Lacquers, as he turns away to light a cigar, whilst Lord Mount Helicon--for the red-bearded dandy is no less a person than that literary peer--dives into the ring to turn an honest “_pony_,” as he calls it, on its fluctuations. “Look here, Mr. Hardingstone,” exclaims the observant Jason, forcibly attracting Frank’s notice to a feat which, as he keeps his eyes fixed on the stand, is going on behind him. “That’s the way to put ’em at it, Major! well ridden, by the Lord Harry!” and Frank turns round in time to witness, with the shouting multitude and the half-frightened ladies, the gallant manner in which D’Orville’s white horse clears the double post and rails to which Sir Ascot had objected. The Major, it is needless to say, is a dauntless horseman, and, on being remonstrated with by Sir A. and his party on the impracticable nature of the leap which he had selected for them, and the young Mohair of the Heavies suggesting that the stewards should always be compelled to ride over the ground themselves, made no more ado, but turned the white horse at the unwelcome barrier, and by dint of a fine hand and a perfectly-broken animal, went “in and out” without touching, to the uproarious delight of the mob, and the less loudly expressed admiration of the ladies. “That’s what I call _in-and-out-clever_,” observes Mr. Jason, as the shouting subsides, thinking he could not have done it better himself; and he too elbows his way into the mass of noise, hustling, and confusion that constitutes the betting-ring. “We ought to throw our ‘bouquets’ at the white horse!” says Mrs. Delaval’s next neighbour, a bold-looking lady of a certain age; and Mary recognises, with mingled feelings, her military adorer and his well-known grey charger, now showing the lapse of time only by his change of colour to pure white. “I’m afraid its all very dangerous,” thinks Blanche, to whom it occurs for the first time that “Cousin Charlie” may possibly break his neck; but the General at this instant touches her elbow to introduce “Major D’Orville,” who, having performed his official duties, has dismounted, and works his way into the stand to make the agreeable to the ladies, and “have a look at this Miss Kettering--the very thing, by Jove, if she is tolerably lady-like.”