Charles Luxmore was not able to sleep much that night. It was not that his conscience troubled him. He gave hardly a thought to the affair at the circus. His imagination was excited; that delusive faculty, which, according to Paley, is the parent of so much error and evil. The idea of Coombe Park recurred incessantly to his mind and kept him awake. But it was not the acquisition of wealth and position that made the prospect so alluring; it was the hope of crowing over all those who had despised him, of exciting the envy of those who now looked down on him. The ’Ring of Bells’ was on the Coombe estate. How he could swagger there as the landlord’s overlord! The Nanspians, Taverner Langford, had but a few hundred acres, and the Coombe Park property was nigh on two thousand. Squire Impey and he would be the two great men of the place, and as the squire at Culm Court was a hunting man, he, Charles Luxmore, would be hand in glove with him. It would be worth much to ride in scarlet after the hounds, with his top boots and a black velvet cap, and the hand holding a whip curled on the thigh so, and to jog past old Langford, and cast him a ’’Do, Taverner, this morning? Middling, eh?’ and to crack the whip at Hillary Nanspian and shout, ’Out o’ the way, you cub, or I’ll ride you down.’ He sat up in bed and flapped his arms, holding the blanket as reins, and clicked with his tongue, and imagined himself galloping over the field after the hounds at full cry. Right along Broadbury, over the fences of Langford, across Taverner’s land, tearing, breaking through the hedges of Chimsworthy, tally-ho! With a kick, Charles sent the bedclothes flying on to the floor. ’By George!’ he said. ’We shall have a meet in front of Coombe Park, and Honor and Kate shall serve out cherry-brandy to the huntsmen.’ Then he scrambled about the floor collecting his bed-clothes and rearranging them. ’I’ll go to Coombe Park to-morrow, and look where the kennels are to be. I’ll give an eye also to the pond. I don’t believe it has been properly cleaned out and fit for trout since the place left our hands. I’m afraid Honor will never rise to her situation—always keep a maid-of-all-work mind. Confound these bed-clothes, I’ve got them all askew.’ So possessed was Charles with the idea that it did not forsake him when morning came. It clung to him all the day. ’There’s only a hundred pounds wanted,’ he said, ’for us to establish our claim.’ Then he paused in the work on which he was engaged. ’How am I to reach a hundred pounds on ninepence a day, I’d like to know? Ninepence a day is four-and-six a week, and that makes eleven guineas or thereabouts per annum. I must have something to spend on clothing and amusement. Say I put away seven guineas in the year, why it would take me thirteen to fourteen years to earn a hundred pounds—going straight as a nail, not as a screw, nor as a ferret.’