However, the Honourable never dreamed for an instant of disputing Mr. Tiptop’s _fiat_; so he consoled himself by thinking what a start he _would_ get! and how he hoped the hounds would keep out of his way. By the time Topsy-Turvy’s clothes had been replaced, and a handsome pony examined and approved of, the party, much to old Isaac’s disgust, adjourned to Mr. Sawyer’s stables, where they were good enough to express their approval of the roan and his companions in that conventional tone which is so much less flattering than one of sincere abuse. These gentlemen hardly knew Mr. Sawyer well enough yet to give their honest opinion; and perhaps it was fortunate for the sake of Isaac’s peace of mind that they did not. “_Useful_ horses, Sawyer!” observed Mr. Savage, considerately sparing the groom the labour of stripping them. “_Useful_ horses,” repeated Captain Struggles and Major Brush in a breath; the latter adding, “and seem pretty fit to go.” While the Honourable Crasher, who had not ventured further than the door, remarked that he “thought Jack-a-Dandy the best shaped one of the lot;” but conceded, in a faint whisper, that the rest of them looked “very like hunters: remarkably _useful_ horses indeed!” Our friend was not deficient in penetration, and by no means a person to have been nearly a week in The Shires without finding out what this epithet means. “When a man tells me he has got a _useful_ horse,” Mr. Sawyer was once heard to observe, “I interpret it that he is the owner of a _useless brute_, which he wishes to sell _me_!” And Mr. Sawyer was not deceived by the politeness of his companions. He held his tongue, however; but more than once he caught himself brooding over the offensive adjective during the evening. “If the roan is only half as good as I take him to be, and I can but get a start to-morrow,” thought our friend, “I’ll show them what my _useful_ horse can do! Miss Dove will be out, too, and that cursed fellow of Putty’s hasn’t sent down my new boots! Never mind—I’ve got the right spurs at any rate, and it won’t be my fault to-morrow if I don’t ‘go for the gloves,’ as we used to say in the Old Country.” He dined at home, and reduced the allowance of sherry considerably; also consumed but one of the Laranagas before going to roost at the sober hour of 10.30. Mr. Sawyer seldom took his nervous system into consideration; but on this occasion, with all his self-confidence (and he had as much as his neighbours), he was indeed resolved not to throw a chance away. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER X “HAIL! SMILING MORN!”