Captain Lisgard shook the trainer's hand with his usual hearty warmth, and Mr Chifney returned his pressure with unwonted cordiality. He was accustomed to meet men of a much higher social rank than his present visitor on something like equal terms; many of them shook hands with him; all of them treated him with familiarity. The Turf, like the Grave, levels all distinctions. Between the Lord and the Blackleg (to make an antithetical use of terms that are not seldom synonymous), there is but slight partition on that common ground; the widest gulf of social difference is bridged over, _pro tem_, by the prospect of an advantageous bet. How much more, then, was this wont to be the case in view of the trustworthy “information” which Mr Tite Chifney had it so often in his power to bestow? Marquises had taken his arm in a confidential manner before now in the most public places, and dukes had called him “Tite;” even ladies of the highest fashion had treated him to pretty speeches, and to what they hoped might turn out literally “winning ways.” But the great trainer estimated all these condescensions at their true value. He never concealed from himself the motives that caused these people to be so civil to him; and perhaps he had seen too much of the turfite aristocracy to be flattered by their attentions, even had they been disinterested. But Walter Lisgard's greeting was different from those which he was wont to receive from his great patrons; there was not only a cordial frankness about it, but a something of sympathy, conveyed with marvellous tact, in his air and manner; which seemed to say: “I unfeignedly regret that anything like friendship should be impossible between us, for I am your social superior; and yet, how ridiculous a thing it is that this should be so! I, but the younger brother of a man himself of no great position, and you, at the head of that profession in which the noblest in the land take so great and personal an interest.” If Mr Chifney did not read all this, it is certain that so acute an observer could not fail to read some of it. He was as far from being moved by any considerations not strictly practical as any man connected with horseflesh; his calling, too, rendered him as suspicious of his fellow-creatures as a police detective; but Master Walter's sort of flattery was too subtle for him. He had always had a liking for this genial young fellow, with his handsome face and pleasant speech, and who, moreover, rode across country like a centaur; he was one of his own landlord's family, too, and the heir-presumptive of the property, whose favour it was just as well to win and keep; and lastly, the lad had been so unfeignedly grateful to him for the little hints he had occasionally afforded him, as well as so wisely reticent about his informant, that he was not unwilling to help him again to a few “fivers,” if he could do so without the betrayal of professional confidence.