"Well, yes; but I don't suppose I shall. I was going to hunt every day last week, but my fellow never would get me up in time. I can't tell why it is that things are done in such a beastly way. Why shouldn't fellows begin to hunt at two or three, so that a fellow needn't get up in the middle of the night?" "Because one can't ride by moonlight, Dolly." "It isn't moonlight at three. At any rate I can't get myself to Euston Square by nine. I don't think that fellow of mine likes getting up himself. He says he comes in and wakes me, but I never remember it." "How many horses have you got at Leighton, Dolly?" "How many? There were five, but I think that fellow down there sold one; but then I think he bought another. I know he did something." "Who rides them?" "He does, I suppose. That is, of course, I ride them myself, only I so seldom get down. Somebody told me that Grasslough was riding two of them last week. I don't think I ever told him he might. I think he tipped that fellow of mine; and I call that a low kind of thing to do. I'd ask him, only I know he'd say that I had lent them. Perhaps I did when I was tight, you know." "You and Grasslough were never pals." "I don't like him a bit. He gives himself airs because he is a lord, and is devilish ill-natured. I don't know why he should want to ride my horses." "To save his own." "He isn't hard up. Why doesn't he have his own horses? I'll tell you what, Carbury, I've made up my mind to one thing, and, by Jove, I'll stick to it. I never will lend a horse again to anybody. If fellows want horses let them buy them." "But some fellows haven't got any money, Dolly." "Then they ought to go tick. I don't think I've paid for any of mine I've bought this season. There was somebody here yesterday--" "What! here at the club?" "Yes; followed me here to say he wanted to be paid for something! It was horses, I think, because of the fellow's trousers." "What did you say?" "Me! Oh, I didn't say anything." "And how did it end?" "When he'd done talking I offered him a cigar, and while he was biting off the end I went up-stairs. I suppose he went away when he was tired of waiting." "I'll tell you what, Dolly; I wish you'd let me ride two of yours for a couple of days,--that is, of course, if you don't want them yourself. You ain't tight now, at any rate." "No; I ain't tight," said Dolly, with melancholy acquiescence. "I mean that I wouldn't like to borrow your horses without your remembering all about it. Nobody knows as well as you do how awfully done up I am. I shall pull through at last, but it's an awful squeeze in the meantime. There's nobody I'd ask such a favour of except you." "Well, you may have them;--that is, for two days. I don't know whether that fellow of mine will believe you. He wouldn't believe Grasslough, and told him so. But Grasslough took them out of the stables. That's what somebody told me." "You could write a line to your groom."