He had cleaned the bit with sand, he was now polishing it with a chamois-leather and loving tenderness. If Larry was a living example of what horses can do for a man, the harness room was an object-lesson of what a man can do for harness. It was good to look at the glossy, nut-brown, pig-skin saddles on their rests, the suits of carriage harness, each complete and in its proper place. “Lave down that whip, or I’ll be takin’ the butt of it to you!” cried Larry. Patsy put the whip aside and waited, making no attempt at conversation, which he knew would be useless. When the bit was polished to satisfaction and placed aside, Larry looked around to see that everything was in its place, blew out the stable lantern, closed the door, and prepared to follow Patsy into the house. It will be noticed that he did not enquire of Patsy what business Mr Fanshawe wanted him upon. Led by Patsy, he entered the house by the kitchen entrance. Patsy’s room, as we have said, was on the ground-floor. The other servants’ rooms were at the top of the house, but the page-boy at Glen Druid always inhabited a room on the ground-floor, near the plate pantry. It was five minutes past ten; most of the servants had gone up to bed, and nobody saw them as they went down the passage to the room, where, lit by a candle burning on the chest of drawers, a coil of rope, a huge pulley, some carpenter’s tools, and half a dozen long screws lay on the bed. A step-ladder stood in the middle of the room under the beam in the ceiling. “You wait here,” said Patsy, “till I tell Mr Fanshawe. Don’t be movin’ from the room; and if any one comes, say you’ve come to help fix the window sash.” “Off with you!” replied Larry. Lady Seagrave, Uncle Molyneux, Violet Lestrange and General Grampound were playing bridge in the drawing-room when Patsy appeared with the announcement, that Larry Lyburn wanted to see Mr Fanshawe on account of one of the horses. Dicky, who had excused himself from bridge, alleging a headache, left the room with a glance at Violet—an ocular kiss unnoticed by the others in the ferment of mind caused by the General, who was going the grand slam. “Larry’s waitin’, sir,” said Patsy. “Come on,” replied Mr Fanshawe. They reached the room unnoticed, and Larry greeted Mr Fanshawe with a touch of an imaginary hat. “That’s right,” said Dicky, looking at the things on the bed—“everything is here. Does Larry know what we’re about?” “No, sir,” said Patsy. “Well, see here,” said Mr Fanshawe, turning to the stable-man, “a burglar is going to break into the house to-night, and I’m going to catch him.” Mr Fanshawe made the statement, as we make many statements in this life, little knowing how much it implied, for, as a matter of fact, the thing he was about to catch or lose that night was not so much Paddy Murphy as his future happiness.