Fortune and he having now closed the struggle, perforce of his total disarmament, he regained the wits we forfeit when we engage her. He said to his friend Chummy: ‘Abrane tomorrow? Ah, yes, punts a Thames waterman. Start of--how many yards? Sunbury-Walton: good reach. Course of two miles: Braney in good training. Straight business? I mayn’t be there. But you, Chummy, you mind, old Chums, all cases of the kind, safest back the professional. Unless--you understand!’ Fleetwood could not persuade Gower to join the party. The philosopher’s pretext of much occupation masked a bashfully sentimental dislike of the flooding of quiet country places by the city’s hordes. ‘You’re right, right,’ said Fleetwood, in sympathy, resigned to the prospect of despising his associates without a handy helper. He named Esslemont once, shot up a look at the sky, and glanced it Eastward. Three coaches were bound for Sunbury from a common starting-point at nine of the morning. Lord Fleetwood, Lord Brailstone, and Lord Simon Pitscrew were the whips. Two hours in advance of them, the earl’s famous purveyors of picnic feasts bowled along to pitch the riverside tent and spread the tables. Our upper and lower London world reported the earl as out on another of his expeditions: and, say what we will, we must think kindly of a wealthy nobleman ever to the front to enliven the town’s dusty eyes and increase Old England’s reputation for pre-eminence in the Sports. He is the husband of the Whitechapel Countess--got himself into that mess; but whatever he does, he puts the stamp of style on it. He and the thing he sets his hand to, they’re neat, they’re finished, they’re fitted to trot together, and they’ve a shining polish, natural, like a lily of the fields; or say Nature and Art, like the coat of a thoroughbred led into the paddock by his groom, if you’re of that mind. Present at the start in Piccadilly, Gower took note of Lord Fleetwood’s military promptitude to do the work he had no taste for, and envied the self-compression which could assume so pleasant an air. He heard here and there crisp comments on his lordship’s coach and horses and personal smartness; the word ‘style,’ which reflects handsomely on the connoisseur conferring it, and the question whether one of the ladies up there was the countess. His task of unearthing and disentangling the monetary affairs of ‘one of the ladies’ compelled the wish to belong to the party soon to be towering out of the grasp of bricks, and delightfully gay, spirited, quick for fun. A fellow, he thought, may brood upon Nature, but the real children of Nature--or she loves them best--are those who have the careless chatter, the ready laugh, bright welcome for a holiday. In catching the hour, we are surely the bloom of the hour? Why, yes, and no need to lose the rosy wisdom of the children when we wrap ourselves in the patched old cloak of the man’s.