“No, indeed,” cherupped Mr. Crane; “and a horse that cost a hundred and thirty puns (he meant pounds!) must not be injured, even, if I may be allowed to say so, to please the ladies.” And having spoken, straightway he fell into a fidget; so that, in less than two minutes, the noble productions of the Amalgamated Amateurs became as a dream of the past to our _dramatis personæ_. On reaching the street, with his wife hanging on his arm, Mr. Crane, ere he placed her in the carriage, thus addressed his domestic-- “Why, coachman, you never told me one of the horses had a cough.” As he spoke, Kate, perfectly understanding that the horse’s cough was an invention of D’Almayne’s, to enable them to get away from the gallery in accordance with her wishes, involuntarily glanced towards him. But where manœuvring and _finesse_ were required, Horace was quite in his element. Catching the attention of the servant (whom he had himself recommended) by a fictitious attack of the malady under which the quadruped was supposed to labour, he, by an almost imperceptible contraction of the eyelid, telegraphed his wishes, ensuring their fulfilment by suggestively tapping the silver head of his cane, to express that in that metal should his compliance be rewarded; so Mr. Crane was glibly informed that his horse had suffered under a bronchial affection for about the space of four days, more or less; but that he, the coachman, having applied an invaluable specific, known only to himself, had not considered the matter sufficiently serious to trouble his master withal;--for which reticence he bore meekly Mr. Crane’s peevish rebuke, consoled by the expectation of five shillings the next morning from Horace D’Almayne. The polished boots of that good young man trod upon roses rather than granite, as he ambled down Pall Mall; for, by means of those trifles which make the sum of human things, he had achieved a great and almost unhoped-for success--he had succeeded in establishing a private understanding with the young and beautiful wife of the millionaire! CHAPTER XXXII.--A GLIMPSE AT THE GREEN-EYED MONSTER. Having consoled himself by a canter in Rotten Row, for the minor martyrdom he had undergone in his pursuit of the fine-arts, as misrepresented by the Amalgamated Amateurs, Harry made the best of his way to Park Lane. As he entered, a note was handed to him by the pompous butler, who took the opportunity to inform him, in a voice husky with the bee’s-wing, from which his throat was never entirely free, that “dinner would be served in a quarter of an hour.”--“Then I’ve no time to lose,” was the reply, and without looking at the note, Harry dashed up stairs, three steps at a time. On reaching his room, however, and finding that Alice’s toilet was by no means in an alarming state of forwardness, he recovered his composure, and opened the note; it ran as follows:--