"Begging your pardon, sir, but I took it on myself to order the colour, and hoping it wasn't a liberty." "Claret and invisible green--a duplicate, but for a bullet-hole wanting." "Which I didn't like to go so far on my own hook, Mr. Anne." "We fight under the old colours, my lad." "And walk in and win this time, sir, strike me lucky!" While we bowled along the first stage towards London--Mr. Romaine and I within the chaise and Rowley perched upon the dickey--I told the lawyer of our progress from Aylesbury to Kirkby-Lonsdale. He took snuff. "_Forsitan et haec olim_--that Rowley of yours seems a good-hearted lad, and less of a fool than he looks. The next time I have to travel post with an impatient lover, I'll take a leaf out of his book and buy me a flageolet." "Sir, it was ungrateful of me----" "Tut, tut, Mr. Anne. I was fresh from my little triumph, that is all; and perhaps would have felt the better for a word of approbation--a little pat on the back, as I may say. It is not often that I have felt the need of it--twice or thrice in my life, perhaps: not often enough to justify my anticipating your example and seeking a wife betimes; for that is a man's one chance if he wants another to taste his success." "And yet I dare swear you rejoice in mine unselfishly enough." "Why, no, sir: your cousin would have sent me to the right-about within a week of his succession. Still, I own to you that he offended something at least as deep as self-interest: the sight and scent of him habitually turned my gorge: whereas"--and he inclined to me with a dry smile--"your unwisdom at least was amiable, and--in short, sir, though you can be infernally provoking, it has been a pleasure to serve you." You may be sure that this did not lessen my contrition. We reached London late that night; and here Mr. Romaine took leave of us. Business waited for him at Amersham Place. After a few hours' sleep, Rowley woke me to choose between two post-boys in blue jackets and white hats, and two in buff jackets and black hats, who were competing for the honour of conveying us as far as Barnet: and having decided in favour of the blue and white, and solaced the buff and black with a _pourboire_, we pushed forward once more. We were now upon the Great North Road, along which the York mail rolled its steady ten miles an hour to the wafted music of the guard's bugle; a rate of speed which to the more Dorian mood of Mr. Rowley's flageolet, I proposed to better by one-fifth. But first, having restored the lad to his old seat beside me, I must cross-question him upon his adventures in Edinburgh, and the latest news of Flora and her aunt, Mr. Robbie, Mrs. McRankine, and the rest of my friends. It came out that Mr. Rowley's surrender to my dear girl had been both instantaneous and complete. "She _is_ a floorer, Mr. Anne. I suppose now, sir, you'll be standing up for that knock-me-down kind of thing?" "Explain yourself, my lad."