Sir Roderick looked up at last, and turned his attention to his coffee, which had been growing cold in front of him. He began to stir it slowly and reflectively with a long cigar cutter, which he had taken up in mistake for his spoon, a mistake over which he laughed heartily when Pierce hastened to rectify it. "It's not only in my speeches that I blunder, apparently. That's just what I am always doing in the House," he pronounced, "stirring up things with the wrong sort of spoon. But the stirring gets done all right, which is the main thing. But now to business," he went on, "and this is my advice to you, Mostyn. You tell me you are going to have a shot for the Royal Hunt Cup, the first race open to you; well, of course, you can do so if you like, and there's no harm whatever in trying your stride, but I can tell you right away that you can't expect to do anything either for the Hunt Cup or at Goodwood. The time is much too short. After Goodwood I see you have the Leger--" Sir Roderick was inspecting, by means of one of the circular magnifying glasses provided by the club, a written list of the races which had been scheduled in Anthony Royce's will. "Well, as to the Leger," he continued, "I really don't see that I can hold out any hope for you there either. You are not likely to get a three-year-old capable of beating either Hipponous or Peveril, and they are both bound to run if fit. So it's as clear as a pike-staff to me that your best chance will be for the Cesarewitch or the Cambridgeshire, and with luck you might pull one of those races off. Anyway I'll do what I can for you if you really think my advice and assistance of any use--in fact, I've already got an idea that I may be able to secure a horse for you for the Cesarewitch; I won't tell you its name just yet, however, but you can take it from me that it will be a good thing." Mostyn was loud in his thanks, and before the little party broke up that evening, he was as confident of winning his legacy as if the money were already in his pocket. "Well, good-bye, my boy," Sir Roderick said, when he rose to go--he always observed early hours on those occasions when he was not sitting late in Parliament. "You've been set a task that I envy you. Go straight at it for all you are worth, and don't be afraid of spending your money--that's the safest way of putting it in your pocket." Of course, both Pierce and Mostyn laughed heartily over this characteristic bull, an inversion of ideas that had a sound basis of truth as far as Mostyn was concerned. It was perhaps significant of the real interest that "Old Rory" was taking in his subject that he had only perpetrated one bull in the course of that evening.