Quick as it happened, and soon as it was over, all Laverick Wells seemed to have congregated in the street as our heroes rode out of the folding glass-doors.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XII

AN OLD FRIEND

About a fortnight after the above catastrophe, and as the recollection of it was nearly effaced by Miss Jumpheavy’s abduction of Ensign Downley, our friend, Mr. Waffles, on visiting his stud at the four o’clock stable-hour, found a most respectable, middle-aged, rosy-gilled, better-sort-of-farmer-looking man, straddling his tight drab-trousered legs, with a twisted ash plant propping his chin, behind the redoubtable Hercules.  He had a bran-new hat on, a velvet-collared blue coat with metal buttons, that anywhere but in the searching glare and contrast of London might have passed for a spic-and-span new one; a small, striped, step-collared toilanette vest; and the aforesaid drab trousers, in the right-hand pocket of which his disengaged hand kept fishing up and slipping down an avalanche of silver, which made a pleasant musical accompaniment to his monetary conversation.  On seeing Mr. Waffles, the stranger touched his hat, and appeared to be about to retire, when Mr. Figg, the stud-groom, thus addressed his master: 

’This be Mr. Buckram, sir, of London, sir; says he knows our brown ’orse, sir.’

‘Ah, indeed,’ observed Mr. Waffles, taking a cigar from his mouth; ’knows no good of him, I should think.  What part of London do you live in, Mr. Buckram?’ asked he.

’Why, I doesn’t exactly live in London, my lord—­that’s to say, sir—­a little way out of it, you know—­have a little hindependence of my own, you understand.’

’Hang it, how should I understand anything of the sort—­never set eyes on you before,’ replied Mr. Waffles.

The half-crowns now began to descend singly in the pocket, keeping up a protracted jingle, like the notes of a lazy, undecided musical snuff-box.  By the time the last had dropped, Mr. Buckram had collected himself sufficiently to resume.

Taking the ash-plant away from his mouth, with which he had been barricading his lips, he observed—­

‘I know’d that oss when Lord Bullfrog had him,’ nodding his head at our old friend as he spoke.

‘The deuce you did!’ observed Mr. Waffles;’ where was that?’

‘In Leicestersheer,’ replied Mr. Buckram.  ’I have a haunt as lives at Mount Sorrel; she has a little hindependence of her own, and I goes down ’casionally to see her—­in fact, I believes I’m her hare.  Well, I was down there just at the beginnin’ of the season, the ’ounds met at Kirby Gate—­a mile or two to the south, you know, on the Leicester road—­it was the fust day of the season, in fact—­and there was a great crowd, and I was one; and havin’ a heye for an oss, I was struck with this one, you understand, bein’ as I thought, a ’ticklar