“Come, Stranleigh, don’t preach, or at least, if you do preach, don’t hedge. You know what I want. Lend me a pony till next Monday, there’s a good fellow. That sum will bring me in six hundred and twenty-five pounds before to-morrow night. I’ve figured it all out on a sheet of club paper, but I’m stony broke, so fork over the twenty-five, Stranleigh.” Lord Stranleigh, without demur, took from his pocketbook some Bank of England notes of ten pounds each, selected three of them, and passed them on to Sir William, who thus getting five pounds more than he had asked for, lovingly fingered the tenacious, crisp pieces of paper, then put forward a bluff of getting one of them changed, that he might return the extra money. “Oh, don’t trouble about that,” said Stranleigh, somewhat wearily. He had had a tiring day at Southampton, and beer and sandwiches were not a very inspiring meal at the end of it. “Don’t trouble about that. If you take another sheet of club paper, you may be able to calculate how much more the extra five pounds will bring you in to-morrow night.” “By Jove, that’s true,” said Sir William, much relieved, and then the ease with which he had made the haul seemed to stir up his covetousness and still further submerge all self-respect. “Talking of the extra amount I will gain reminds me, Stranleigh, that if you will give me one more ten-pound note, the whole loot will be an even thousand at twenty-five to one, you know. I’ll pay it all back on Monday, but it seems a pity to miss such a chance, doesn’t it?” “How wonderfully you can estimate the odds, Billy. If forty pounds will bring you a thousand, then, as you say, it would be a pity to miss such an opportunity. Well, here you are,” and he passed the fourth ten-pound note into the other’s custody. Still Sir William lingered. Perhaps it would have been more merciful if his lordship had demurred rather strenuously against accommodating him with the so-called loan. The sight of the other’s notes now returning to his pocket filled him with envy. He felt some remnant of reluctance in attempting to increase his acquisition, so he put it in another form: “I say, Stranleigh, if you’d like me to lay a bit on for you, so far as Flying Scud is concerned, I’ll do it with pleasure.” “Thanks, old man, but I shan’t trouble you. I intend to put on some money, but it will be against Flying Scud.” “What! have you heard anything?” cried Sir William in alarm, but the other interrupted---- “I know nothing about the horse at all, but I know a good deal about your luck, and I’ll have that forty pounds back on Monday, without troubling you, except by betting against you.” Sir William laughed a little, shrugged his shoulders, and walked away with the loot. “Yes,” murmured Stranleigh to himself, “this is dear old London again, sure enough. The borrowing of money has begun.”