I took a coach and drove to the Palace. My longing to see the boy again was very strong; yet I felt anxious. Would he be greatly changed? Would he be glad or would he think my coming a bore? Above all, how would he take my interference? A sense of the extreme delicacy of my mission increased on me, making me nervous and diffident. An orderly ushered me into a room where half a dozen dandies were lounging. These stared at me sufficiently, and thought me, evidently, a dun. One beardless youth, indeed, after brushing past me, turning his back to me, and otherwise bristling up like a dog at a strange dog, expressed his opinion aloud. ‘MacArthur!’ to the orderly. ‘Are you not aware that this is a private room?’ ‘I am sorry,’ I said instantly, for their impertinence restored my self-confidence, ‘if I am intruding. I simply asked for Lord Hartover, and was, as simply, shown in here.’ I thought the lad might have known me for a gentleman by my voice; but possibly his experience in life had not extended so far, for he answered: ‘Lord Hartover, I imagine, pays his bills at his own house.’ I did redden, I confess, being still young and sensitive; but, after staring at him as full as he stared at me, I answered, bowing: ‘I am afraid I am not so useful a person as a tradesman. I am only a Cambridge scholar, formerly Lord Hartover’s tutor, who wishes to see him upon urgent private business.’ ‘I—I really beg your pardon. Pray sit down, sir,’ quoth the sucking hero, evidently abashed, handing me a chair. But at that moment a pair of broad shoulders, which had been bent over a card-table at the farther end of the room, turned about with: ‘Hey? Why, Brownlow, by all that’s— Odd trick, Ponsonby—wait one moment.—How are you, my dear fellow? And what on earth brings you here among us warriors?’ And the mighty Rusher rose, like Saul the son of Kish a head and shoulders above his fellows. At first I believe he was really pleased to see me. His handsome face was genial, a light of good-natured and kindly amusement in his eye. ‘Well, how are you?’ he repeated. ‘Do you remember Brocklesby Whins and the brown horse? Come up this winter and you shall ride him again; by Jove, you shall—and take the rascally little grey fox home with you. I’ve got him stuffed and ready, as I promised I would; and wondered why you’d not claimed your property before.’ I was beginning to speak, but he ran on: ‘Brother officers, let me introduce you to my friend Mr. Brownlow, as fine a light-weight across country as you need wish to know, and who saved my pack from destruction at the risk of his own life,—a long and prosperous one may it be!’ ‘My hunting days are over, I fear,’ I said, as the men of war stared all the more at the lame young don, black-coated, black-breeched and black-stockinged—thinking, I doubt not, I was a ‘rum ’un to look at’ even if a ‘good ’un to go.’