He was right in supposing that the ladies were going to the vicarage. As they went in that direction, they came upon a strange dissolute old man whom they eyed with wondering dislike, and to whom they gave a wide berth as they passed. They had not gone by long before a third person came through the lodge gates and sauntered after them. This was Jim Foley, come out, with his hands in his pockets and a one-eyed terrier at his heels, to smoke his morning pipe. He, too, espied the old toper, and at sight of him took his pipe from his mouth and stood in the middle of the road, an expression of surprise on his features; while Mr. Jones, becoming aware of him too late--for his faculties were not of the sharpest in the morning--also stood by some instinct and looked, with a growing sense of unpleasant recognition, at his lanky figure. "Hallo!" said Jim. Mr. Jones did not answer, but stood blinking in the sunshine. He looked more blear-eyed and shabby, more hopelessly gone to seed, than he had looked in the vicarage dining-room. "Hallo!" said Foley again. "My old friend Wilkins, I think!" "My name is Jones," the man muttered. "Ah, Jones is it? Jones _vice_ Wilkins resigned," Jim replied, with ironical politeness. "Come down to Acton upon a little matter of business, I suppose. Now look here, Jones _vice_ Wilkins," he continued, pointing each sentence with a wave of his pipe, "I see your game. You have come down here to screw out a ten-pound note, by threatening to tell the squire some old story of my turf days. That is it, isn't it?" Mr. Jones opened his mouth to deny the charge but thought better of it; either because of the settled scepticism which Foley's face expressed, or because he saw a ten-pound note in the immediate future. He remained silent. "Just so," Foley went on with a nod, replacing his pipe in his mouth and his hand in his pocket. "Well, it won't do. It won't do, do you understand? Because, do you see, you have not accounted for the last pony I sent you to put on Paradox for the Two Thousand. And I will just trouble you for it and three to the back of it. Three to one was the starting price, I think, Mr. Jones." Mr. Jones's face fell abruptly, and he glared at Foley. "It never reached me," he muttered huskily. "You mean that you are not going to refund it," Jim retorted. "Well, you don't look as if you had it. But I'll tell you what you'll do. You will go back whence you came within three hours--there is a train at two-forty, and you will go by it. You have caught a Tartar, do you see?" Jim continued sternly, "and though you may, if you stay, give me an unpleasant hour with the squire, I shall give you a much more unpleasant hour with the policeman." "But the squire----" the old man began; "the squire----"