’Well, but she’ll take you to Jawleyford Court as quick as the best of them,’ rejoined his lordship, adding, ’the roads are wretched, and Jaw’s stables are a disgrace to humanity—­might as well put a horse in a cellar.’

‘Well,’ observed Jack, retiring from the parlour window to his little den along the passage, to put the finishing touch to his toilet—­the green cutaway and buff waistcoat, which he further set off with a black satin stock—­’Well,’ said he, ‘needs must when a certain gentleman drives.’

He presently reappeared full fig, rubbing a fine new eight-and-sixpenny flat-brimmed hat round and round with a substantial puce-coloured bandana.  ‘Now for the specs!’ exclaimed he, with the gaiety of a man in his Sunday’s best, bound on a holiday trip.  ‘Now for the silver specs!’ repeated he.

‘Ah, true,’ replied his lordship; ‘I’d forgot the specs.’ (He hadn’t, only he thought his silver-mounted ones would be safer in his keeping than in Jack’s.) ‘I’d forgot the specs.  However, never mind, you shall have these,’ said he, taking his tortoise-shell-rimmed ones off his nose and handing them to Jack.

[Illustration:  MR. SPRAGGON’S EMBASSY TO JAWLEYFORD COURT]

‘You promised me the silver ones,’ observed our friend Jack, who wanted to be smart.

‘Did I?’ replied his lordship; ’I declare I’d forgot.  Ah yes, I believe I did,’ added he, with an air of sudden enlightenment—­’the pair upstairs; but how the deuce to get at them I don’t know, for the key of the Indian cabinet is locked in the old oak press in the still-room, and the key of the still-room is locked away in the linen-press in the green lumber-room at the top of the house, and the key of the green lumber-room is in a drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe in the Star-Chamber, and the—­’

‘Ah, well; never mind,’ grunted Jack, interrupting the labyrinth of lies.  ‘I dare say these will do—­I dare say these will do,’ putting them on; adding, ’Now, if you’ll lend me a shawl for my neck, and a mackintosh, my name shall be Walker.’

‘Better make it Trotter,’ replied his lordship, ’considering the distance you have to go.’

‘Good,’ said Jack, mounting and driving away.

‘It will be a blessing if we get there,’ observed Jack to the liveried stable-lad, as the old bag of bones of a mare went hitching and limping away.

‘Oh, she can go when she’s warm,’ replied the lad, taking her across the ears with the point of the whip.  The wheels followed merrily over the sound, hard road through the park, and the gentle though almost imperceptible fall of the ground giving an impetus to the vehicle, they bowled away as if they had four of the soundest, freshest legs in the world before them, instead of nothing but a belly-band between them and eternity.