He would fain have talked it over with Isaac then and there; but the veteran, simply remarking that “he was quite satisfied, and it would be daylight in ten minutes,” passed through the white gate already mentioned, and trotted back to the town at a pace which Mr. Tiptop’s regard for Chance’s legs forbade him to imitate. Both horses were safe home in their stables before the helpers were up. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XV TAKING A HINT NO man alive subscribed more heartily than did the Honourable Crasher to Mr. Sheridan’s aphorism, that “If the early bird catches the worm, what a fool must the worm be to get up earlier than the bird!” It was always a matter of great difficulty to get the Honourable out of bed, and not to be managed without considerable diplomacy. The stud-groom and valet laid their heads together for this purpose with laudable ingenuity, the former entertaining a professional regard for the hack’s legs, the latter being much averse to the idea of a hurried toilet. He liked to turn the Honourable out as a gentleman should be dressed, resplendent in scarlet, and with faultless boots and breeches. In his own opinion, proper justice could not be done to the garments he had prepared, under an hour and a quarter; and when the place of meeting was a dozen miles off, and the church clock chiming half-past nine found his master still in bed, the valet might be seen pervading the passages with tears in his eyes. The _ruse_ he found most efficacious was to tap at the door soon after eight, and say it was near ten. The Honourable’s watch was pretty sure to have been left downstairs, or, if in his bedroom, to have stopped, unwound; and often as the trick had succeeded, Crasher never seemed yet to have found it out. Even if he rose in time, however, he was a sad dawdle. There were letters to be read, and sometimes answered. He would breakfast in a gorgeous dressing-gown, and smoke a cigar over a French novel afterwards, never dreaming of getting into his hunting things till he ought to have been more than halfway to covert. Sometimes, and this was the sorest grievance of all, he would take a fancy not to hunt, and then changing his mind at the last moment, order round one of the unfortunate hacks, and go off like a flash of lightning. On the morning to which I have already alluded, Mr. Tiptop, cleaned, breakfasted, and considerably freshened up, having completely recovered the effects of his early gallop, seen everything set straight about the stable, and dispatched two of his master’s horses to Shearsby Inn, was vainly waiting for an audience at the Honourable’s bedroom door about ten A.M.