"I'll tell the Guv'nor you'll be round in 'alf a jiffy," Sam said, and went out of the room jerkily, as if he had got a stiff leg. "What curious friends you have, Augustus, and what is ''alf a jiffy'?" Bruce asked. "Don't be a fool," Bunny answered, "and don't call me Augustus." "It's better than Gussy," Bruce declared, and though I should have been glad to contradict him, for I disliked him at sight, there is no doubt that he was right. "Is the man, who has gone, an elderly undergraduate or only a don?" Bruce went on. "He's from some stables round the corner. Any one with two eyes could see that." "Rude as usual; my cousin's the oddest man," Bruce said to Jack. "Like to buy a horse?" Bunny asked him. "I'm ready to buy anything if I can sell it at a profit," he answered. "Well, swallow your breakfast and come and have a look. You'll get your profit all right. I've never known you when you didn't." In a few minutes we all went to the stables, and Bunny began haggling operations. Bruce bid a "fiver" for Thunderer, and was told he would fetch that for cats' meat, and then the game went on. In the end Bruce said he would give fifteen guineas, and take him to London that day. I nearly seized him by the hand, and told him he was a rare good sort, which I was quite convinced he was not. The livery-stable man did not seem to care what happened as long as Thunderer went away, and I must say that he made the least of his eccentricities. "That's a bit of luck," Bunny said to me when the bargain was settled, "I get rid of my cousin and a horse on the same day, both real bad lots. He's our family pestilence," and he nodded at Bruce's back. For Jack's benefit I added up the result of my investment, and came to the conclusion that I was about eighteen-pence to the bad when I had paid for the damage Thunderer had done, and all the little incidental expenses connected with him. You can't own a race-horse for nothing, and I think that I--or rather Bunny--did well. I was told afterwards that Bruce raffled my horse and sold fifty tickets for a sovereign each, but I am not inclined to believe that story, and at any rate I should not have known where to find fifty fools. I certainly could not have discovered them in Oxford, where some people, who have never been there, make the mistake of thinking they are to be found in crowds. I believe the dons held a meeting about Jack and me, for The Bradder told us there was a great difference of opinion about the sort of men we were. I tried to get more out of him, but failed. However, we got off lightly, for Jack was only gated for a week, while I was given a lecture by the Subby, and had a week added to my term of imprisonment. The Bradder also advised me to give up going to race-meetings. CHAPTER XXII A TUTORSHIP