Trebooze has been sorely exercised, during the last fortnight, between fear of the cholera and desire of calling upon Lord Scoutbush—­“as I ought to do, of course, as one of the gentry round; he’s a Whig, of course, and no more to me than anybody else; but one don’t like to let politics interfere;” by which Trebooze glosses over to himself and friends the deep Hunkeydom with which he lusteth after a live lord’s acquaintance, and one especially in whom he hopes to find even such a one as himself....  “Good fellow, I hear he is, too,—­good sportsman, smokes like a chimney,” and so forth.

So at last, when the cholera has all but disappeared, he comes down to Penalva, and introduces himself, half swaggering, half servile; begins by a string of apologies for not having called before,—­“Mrs. Trebooze so afraid of infection, you see, my lord,”—­which is a lie:  then blunders out a few fulsome compliments to Scoutbush’s courage in staying; then takes heart at a little joke of Scoutbush’s, and tries the free and easy style; fingers his lordship’s high-priced Hudsons, and gives a broad hint that he would like to smoke one on the spot; which hint is not taken, any more than the bet of a “pony” which he offers five minutes afterwards, that he will jump his Irish mare in and out of Aberalva pound; is utterly “thrown on his haunches” (as he informs his friend Mr. Creed afterwards) by Scoutbush’s praise of Tom Thurnall, as an “invaluable man, a treasure in such an out-of-the-way place, and really better company than ninety-nine men out of a hundred;” recovers himself again when Scoutbush asks after his otter-hounds, of which he has heard much praise from Tardrew; and launches out once more into sporting conversation of that graceful and lofty stamp which may be perused and perpended in the pages of “Handley Cross,” and “Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour,” books painfully true to that uglier and baser side of sporting life, which their clever author has chosen so wilfully to portray.

So, at least, said Scoutbush to himself, when his visitor had departed.

“He’s just like a page out of Sponge’s Tour, though he’s not half as good a fellow as Sponge himself; for Sponge knew he was a snob, and lived up to his calling honestly:  but this fellow wants all the while to play at being a gentleman; and—­Ugh! how the fellow smelt of brandy, and worse!  His hand, too, shook as if he had the palsy, and he chattered and fidgetted like a man with St. Vitus’s dance.”

“Did he, my lord?” quoth Tom Thurnall, when he heard the same, in a very meaning tone.

And Trebooze, “for his part, couldn’t make out that lord—­uncommonly agreeable, and easy, and all that:  but shoves a fellow off, and sets him down somehow, and in such a ——­ civil way, that you don’t know where to have him.”

However, Trebooze departed in high spirits; for Lord Scoutbush has deigned to say that he will be delighted to see the otter-hounds work any morning that Trebooze likes, and anyhow—­no time too early for him.  “He will bring his friend Major Campbell?”