"Lord Hetton's a political chap, ain't he, Mr. Mason?" said he, addressing the great man with much humility. "Not as ever I heard of; why his lordship's a racing man. Every one knows Lord Hetton--him as owned Dark Despair, and lost the Derby once by a short head." "Oh, that's him, is it?" replied Mr. Parsons, "and what's his address when he's at home?" "How should I know his address?" said the landlord. "If you wants to call on him, you might try the Jockey Club, or I shouldn't be surprised if you was to find him at Tattersall's of a Sunday afternoon; that sort mostly shows up there. What might you want with him?" "Oh, it's no great matter," replied Mr. Parsons; "it's only a little bit of business about a dog," and then he changed the conversation. "Racing plate," he thought, "there is never any mistake about that; that's the real genuine article, thank goodness." And then Mr. Parsons, who was of a sentimental turn of mind and a humble patron of the drama, sauntered off to the Britannia Theatre, at Hoxton, and derived no small degree of mental comfort in four hours of the sorrows of "Ada, the Betrayed." It has been said that Lord Hetton was an economical man; every farthing that he could scrape together invariably went to settle his accounts with his trainer. He had begun life as a pigeon, to all appearances he would end it as a hawk. Dark rumours of shady things which had been done in his name rendered men shy of backing his horses. Scandal had said that the boy who rode Dark Despair, when that animal was beaten on the post, had pulled the great raking chestnut by his lordship's orders. But though Lord Hetton had done many shabby things in his time, it was by no fault of his that Dark Despair failed to win the blue ribbon of the turf. It is quite possible that the boy who rode the animal had made a mess of the race at the critical moment, or he may even have been "got at," but that was not Lord Hetton's opinion or that of his astute trainer; and the same stunted youth still always rode in his lordship's colours in any big event in which Lord Hetton's animals might be engaged. Owner and trainer had neither of them been to blame in the matter; his lordship had honestly backed Dark Despair, and had had considerable difficulty in meeting his engagements at the time. There had even been an execution in Azalea Lodge. Azalea Lodge was the one luxury that his lordship permitted himself; he looked upon it as his home, and the titular mistress of Azalea Lodge had been the original cause of all his differences with his father. Hetton was quite a boy when he first fell into the toils of the syren; he was not quite fool enough to marry her, his fear of the old lord prevented that; for her sake Lord Hetton declined to marry; for her sake he was shut out from society; and he was a man to be pitied after all, for he hadn't a friend in the world, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he succeeded