"Seen my cousin?" he cried, as he encountered Jerry, the house servant, valet, and factotum. "See him smoking in the garden 'arf a hour ago, S'Richard." Richard hurried down into the extensive grounds, and came plump upon Mr Draycott, the well-known military tutor and coach, tramping laboriously up and down one of the gravel paths, with his hands behind, giving a loud puff at every second step, for he was an enormously fat man, to whom walking was a severe trial, but a trial he persevered in from a wholesome dread that, if he neglected proper exercise, he would grow worse. "Hullo, Frayne!" he cried, "I want to see you--" _puff_. "Yes, sir?" "Look here, I'm very much put out about you, Frayne--I am, indeed!"--_puff_. "What about, sir?" "Oh, you know"--_puff_. "Of course, I never object to my pupils having their own hobbies; but you have been carrying your musical"--_puff_--"whims to excess"--_puff_. Richard coloured. "I do not see why a soldier"--_puff_--"should not be a good musician, though the trumpet"--_puff_--"seems more in the way than the piano"--_puff_. "But you ought not to have gone in debt over such a matter"--_puff_. "In debt, sir?" "Yes. Don't repeat my words!"--_puff_. "Now, I have warned you against it!"--_puff_. "You did, sir; but I don't understand your allusions," said Richard, though he suspected that he did. "Then you ought to, sir!"--_puff_. "Hasn't that money-lending tailor"--_puff_--"just come from dunning you?" "Yes, sir; but--" "There, I know all about it. Pay him off, and never get into such a hobble again"--_puff_. "Coming, my dear!"--_puff_. Mrs Draycott, an exceedingly thin lady, was calling from the French window of the drawing-room, and the "Heavy Coach," as his pupils nicknamed him, went puffing off up to the house. "Oh, I can't stand this!" said Richard to himself. "I must have a thorough explanation. Mark shall speak out. Why, Draycott believes it, too! That scoundrelly little tailor must have told him. Hi! Dillon, seen my cousin?" This was to a fellow-pupil, who was coming down the garden. "Five minutes--ten minutes--ago, going across the Close. Gone to see the river; it's getting flooded. What's the row?" "Oh, nothing--nothing." "But you look as if you were going to knock his head off." "I am," cried Richard, over his shoulder, as he hurried off. "That's right. Hit hard! Save me a lock of his hair!" shouted the youth; and then to himself: "Serve the beast right! What's he been doing now?" Richard Frayne met a couple more of the "Heavy Coach's" pupils as he crossed the Cathedral Close, where the calm silence of the old place ought to have quelled the angry throbbing in his veins; but it had an opposite effect, and the cries of the jackdaws which clung about the mouldering tower sounded like impish derisive laughter. "Anything the matter?" said one of the pair. "Yes; seen my cousin?"