“Depend upon it I shall find him nothing of the kind,” returned Coverdale, snappishly; then, seeing the look of surprise that spread over his friend’s countenance, he continued, dejectedly:--“Ah, my dear boy, you little know the extent to which I’ve been putting my foot in it since you went away. Tom tells me I annoyed your governor three or four days ago, by taking the nonsense out of that beast of a horse old Crane had the stupidity to give Alice; a brute which would have broken her sweet neck, if I hadn’t luckily been at hand to catch her as she was falling. Then, to improve the matter, last night we all drank wine enough, and the Head of the Family got a little too much into it to be good for its proprietor; accordingly, he forced me to give my opinion about Free-trade, and then pitched into me for so doing, and declared I’d insulted him: upon which I lost my temper, and said something rude; and, to come to the point, as you call it, he is now as savage as a bear with me, and all the blessed influence you’ve been paying me such pretty compliments about, if it ever existed, is scattered to the winds. I dare not speak to him, it would be worse than useless; he’d be only too glad to refuse me at once, lest he should lose such a good opportunity of paying me off for last night. Ah!” he continued, “you may well look puzzled,--you would not like to have many clients with such a talent as I possess for unconsciously cutting their own throats! What’s to be done?--divide the wires of the electric telegraph at King’s Cross Station, and then take Alice along the Great Northern to Gretna Green--though Gretna Green has been done brown by some recent act, has it not, and the harmonious and hymeneal blacksmith retired into private life? Come, advise, for I can hit upon nothing; only remember one thing,--since Alice is good enough to say she will have me, _married I must and will be_, if all the fathers in England were to set themselves against it!” CHAPTER XV.--RELATES THE UNEXPECTED BENEVOLENCE OF HORACE D’ALMAYNE. Arthur Hazlehurst, with an aspect graver than his wont, replied to Harry’s appeal--“It certainly is very unfortunate that you should have selected last night, of all others, to displease my father; because, owing to the Crane offer, time is of the greatest importance; but for that I should not have cared; you would only have had to wait for a week or two, taking pains to be especially polite and deferential in the interval, and he would have totally forgotten his anger. As it is, perhaps I had better speak to him,--he is sure to tell me about the cotton-spinner, and I can avail myself of that opportunity to come to the point; and now, if you have nothing better to propose, we’ll go in to breakfast. Love may possibly destroy the appetite, but a railroad journey has a directly contrary effect.”