His Lordship took the rebuke with an oath, and presently hobbled down the stairs of the great and silent house to the stable court, where two grooms were in waiting with the horse.  He was an animal of amazing power, about sixteen hands, and dapple gray in colour.  And it required no special knowledge to see that he had a devil inside him.  It gleamed wickedly out of his eye.

“’Od’s life, Richard!” cried Charles, “he has a Jew nose; by all the seven tribes I bid you ’ware of him.”

“You have but to ride him with a gold bit, Richard,” said Comyn, “and he is a kitten, I’ll warrant.”

At that moment Pollux began to rear and kick, so that it took both the ’ostlers to hold him.

“Show him a sovereign,” suggested Fox.  “How do you feel, Richard?”

“I never feared a horse yet,” I said with perfect truth, “nor do I fear this one, though I know he may kill me.”

“I’ll lay you twenty pounds you have at least one bone broken, and ten that you are killed,” Baltimore puts in querulously, from the doorway.

“I’ll do this, my Lord,” I answered.  “If I ride him, he is mine.  If he throws me, I give you twenty pounds for him.”

The gentlemen laughed, and Baltimore vowed he could sell the horse to Astley for fifty; that Pollux was the son of Renown, of the Duke of Kingston’s stud, and much more.  But Charles rallied him out by a reference to the debt at quinze, and an appeal to his honour as a sportsman.  And swore he was discouraging one of the prettiest encounters that would take place in England for many a long day.  And so the horse was sent to the stables of the White Horse Cellar, in Piccadilly, and left there at my order.

CHAPTER XXXVI

A GLIMPSE OF MR. GARRICK

Day after day I went to Arlington Street, each time to be turned away with the same answer:  that Miss Manners was a shade better, but still confined to her bed.  You will scarce believe me, my dears, when I say that Mr. Marmaduke had gone at this crisis with his Grace to the York races.  On the fourth morning, I think, I saw Mrs. Manners.  She was much worn with the vigil she had kept, and received me with an apathy to frighten me.  Her way with me had hitherto always been one of kindness and warmth.  In answer to the dozen questions I showered upon her, she replied that Dorothy’s malady was in no wise dangerous, so Dr. James had said, and undoubtedly arose out of the excitement of a London season.  As I knew, Dorothy was of the kind that must run and run until she dropped.  She had no notion of the measure of her own strength.  Mrs. Manners hoped that, in a fortnight, she would be recovered sufficiently to be removed to one of the baths.

“She wishes me to thank you for the flowers, Richard.  She has them constantly by her.  And bids me tell you how sorry she is that she is compelled to miss so much of your visit to England.  Are you enjoying London, Richard?  I hear that you are well liked by the best of company.”