"Don't humbug, Frank. Of course I want to call there. I want to patch up that unpleasantly. I want to be on good terms with my neighbours." "Hadn't you better have only a week's holiday down here, and then be off again to sea?" "Will you help me, Franky, or won't you?" "I will. Now, then, what is it? Get up something to amuse Van and Flick till you come back?" "Yes, that's it. Do that for me, there's a dear old fellow." "What should you think the hour or so worth to you?" "Worth? I don't understand you." "Would you stand a five-pound note for the freedom?" "Half a dozen, you mercenary little limb of the law." "Hold hard, there! or, in your nautical parlance, avast there! I don't want the money--only to lose. If I play billiards with Van he's sure to beat me, and he knows it; therefore, he won't play me without he thinks he can win some money. Give me a fiver to lose to him, and I'll warrant he won't leave the billiard-room till he has got every shilling." "Here--take ten pounds," said Trevor, hastily; "and go on, there's a good fellow." "No; five will do for him," said Frank. "And now I shall have to play my best, to make it last." "Frank, old boy, you're a trump. I don't know what I should have done without you." "I always was a young man who could make himself generally useful," said Pratt. "Good luck to you, old boy!" He sighed, though, and looked rather gloomy as he went out to seek the friends whom he had left in the smoking-room, where Vanleigh was in anything but a good humour, and had been pouring a host of complaints into Sir Felix's ear. It was foolish of them to come down to such an out-of-the-way place; they should be eaten up with ennui. Why didn't Trevor order horses round? The wines weren't good; and he hadn't smoked such bad weeds for years. "Must make the best of a bad bargain," said Sir Felix. "Must stay-- week." "Oh! we'll stay a month now we are here," said Vanleigh; "let's punish him somehow. What do you say to having a smoke outside?" "I'm 'greeable," said Sir Felix; and they passed out through the window. Five minutes after Pratt entered the room, with-- "Now, Vanleigh, I'll play a--Hallo! where the deuce are they?" He walked hastily into the billiard-room, expecting to find a game begun; but, of course, they were not there. "Gone to write letters," he muttered; and he went into the library. Then he entered the drawing-room, the dining-room, the conservatory. Ran up and knocked at their bedroom doors, and then ran down again. "Having a weed in the garden," said Pratt, "of course. How provoking!" He took a hat and ran out to the summer-house, garden chairs being set out beneath the various favourite trees, and at last caught sight of a couple of figures in the distance, evidently making for the sea. "That must be them," he said; and he started off in full chase.