"Well, I can't say as much," said Beecher, laughing; "and I own frankly I never felt less at ease in my life."

"That's _your_ way of business," said Grog, nodding gravely at him.

"Every fellow is n't born as sharp as you, Davis. Samson was a wise man--no, Solomon was a wise man--"

"Leave Samson and Solomon where they are," said Grog, puffing his cigar.

"What we have to look to here is whether there be a claim at all, and then what it's worth. The whole affair may be just a cross between this fellow Dunn and one of his own pals. Now, it's my Lord's business to see to that. _You_ are only the _second_ horse all this while. If my Lord knows that he can be disqualified, he's wide awake enough to square the match, he is. But it maybe that Dunn hasn't put the thing fairly before him. Well, then, you must compare your book with my Lord's. You'll have to go over to him, Beecher." And the last words were uttered with a solemnity that showed they were the result of a deep deliberation.

"It's all very well, Master Davis, to talk of going over to Italy; but where's the tin to come from?"

"It must be had somehow," said Davis, sententiously. "Ain't there any fellows about would give you a name to a bit of stiff, at thirty-one days' date?"

"Pumped them all dry long ago!" said Beecher, laughing. "There's not a man in the garrison would join me to spoil a stamp; and, as to the civilians, I scarcely know one who isn't a creditor already."

"You are always talking to me of a fellow called Kellett,--why not have a shy at _him?_"

"Poor Paul!" cried Beecher, with a hearty laugh. "Why, Paul Kellett's ruined--cleaned out--sold in the Encumbered what d'ye-call-'ems, and has n't a cross in the world!"

"I ought to have guessed as much," growled out Grog, "or he'd not have been on such friendly terms with _you_."

"A polite speech that, Grog," said Beecher, smiling.

"It's true, and that's better," said Davis. "The only fellows that stick close to a man in his poverty are those a little poorer than himself."

"Not but, if he had it," said Beecher, following up his own thoughts,--"not but, if he had it, he's just the fellow to do a right good-natured thing."

"Well, I suppose he's got his name,--they have n't sold _that_, have they?"

"No, but it's very much like the estate," said Beecher. "It's far too heavily charged ever to pay off the encumbrances."

"Who minds that, nowadays? A bad bill is a very useful thing sometimes.

It's like a gun warranted to burst, and you can always manage to have it in the right man's hands when it comes the time for the explosion."

"You _are_ a rum un, Davis,--you _are_, indeed," said Beecher, admiringly; for it was in the delivery of such wise maxims that Davis appeared to him truly great.

"Get him down for fifty,--that ain't much,--fifty at three months. My Lord says he 'll stand fifty himself, in that letter I read. It was to help you to a match, to be sure; but that don't matter. There can be no question of marrying now. Let me see how this affair is going to turn.

Well, I'll see if I can't do something myself. I've a precious lot of stamped paper there,"--and he pointed to an old secretary,--"if I could hit upon a sharp fellow to work it."

"You are a trump, Grog!" cried Beecher, delightedly.

"If we had a clear two hundred, we could start to-morrow," said Grog, laying down his cigar, and staring steadfastly at him.

"Why, would _you_ come, too?" muttered Beecher, who had never so much as imagined the possibility of this companionship on the Continent.

"I expect I would," said Davis, with a very peculiar grin. "It ain't likely you'd manage an affair like this without advice."

"Very true,--very true," said Beecher, hurriedly. "But remember, Lackington is my brother,--we 're both in the same boat."

"But not with the same skulls," said Grog. And he grinned a savage grin at the success of his pun.

Beecher, however, so far from appreciating the wit, only understood the remark as a sneer at his intelligence, and half sulkily said,--

"Oh! I'm quite accustomed to that, now,--I don't mind it."

"That's right,--keep your temper," said Grog, calmly; "that's the best thing in _your_ book. You 're what they call good-tempered. And," added he, in the moralizing tone, "though the world does take liberties with the good-tempered fellows, it shies them many a stray favor,--many a sly five-pun'-note into the bargain. I've known fellows go through life--and make a rare good thing of it, too--with no other stock-in-trade than this same good temper."

Beecher did not pay his habitual attention to Grog's words, but sat pondering over all the possible and impossible objections to a tour in such company. There were times and places where men might be seen talking to such a man as Davis. The betting-ring and the weighing-stand have their privileges, just like the green-room or the "flats," but in neither case are the intimacies of such localities exactly of a kind for parade before the world. Of all the perils of such a course none knew better than Beecher. What society would think,--what clubs would say of it,--he could picture to his mind at once.

Now, there were very few of life's casualties of which the Honorable Annesley Beecher had not tasted. He knew what it was to have his bills protested, his chattels seized, his person arrested; he had been browbeaten by Bankruptcy Commissioners, and bullied by sheriffs'

officers; tradesmen had refused him credit; tailors abjured his custom; he had "burned his fingers" in one or two not very creditable transactions; but still, with all this, there was yet one depth to which he had not descended,--he was never seen in public with a "wrong man."

He had a jerk of the head, a wink, or a glance for the leg who met him in Piccadilly, as every one else had. If he saw him in the garden of the Star and Garter, or the park at Greenwich, he might even condescend to banter him on "looking jolly," and ask what new "robbery" he was in for; but as to descending to intimacy or companionship openly before the gaze of the world, he 'd as soon have thought of playing cad to a 'bus, or sweep at a crossing.

It was true the Continent was not Hyde Park,--the most strait-laced and well-conducted did fifty things there they had never ventured on at home. Foreign travel had its license, and a passport was a sort of plenary indulgence for many a social transgression; but, with all this, there were a few names--about half a dozen in all Europe--that no man could afford to link his own along with.

As for Grog, he was known everywhere. From Ostend to Odessa his fame extended, and there was scarcely a police prefect in the travelled districts of the Continent that had not a description of his person, and some secret instructions respecting him. From many of the smaller states, whose vigilance is in the ratio of their littleness, he was rigidly excluded; so that in his journeying through Europe, he was often reduced to a zigzag and erratic procedure, not unlike the game known to schoolboys as scotch-hop. In the ten minutes--it was not more--that Beecher passed in recalling these and like facts to his memory, his mind grew more and more perplexed; nor was the embarrassment unperceived by him who caused it. As Davis sipped and smoked, he stole frequent glances at his companion's face, and strove to read what was passing in his mind. "It may be," thought Grog, "he does n't see his way to raising the money. It may be that his credit is lower in the market than I fancied; or"--and now his fiery eyes grew fiercer and his lip more tense--"or it may be that he doesn't fancy _my_ company. If I was only sure it was _that_," muttered he between his teeth; and had Annesley Beecher only chanced to look at him as he said it, the expression of that face would have left a legacy of fear behind it for many a day.

"Help yourself," said Grog, passing the bottle across the table,--"help yourself, and the gin will help you, for I see you are 'pounded.'"

"Pounded? No, not a bit; nothing of the kind," said Beecher, blushing.

"I was thinking how Lackington would take all this; what my Lady would say to it; whether they 'd regard it seriously, or whether they 'd laugh at my coming out so far about nothing."

"They'll not laugh, depend on't; take my word for it, they won't laugh,"

said Davis, dryly.

"Well, but if it all comes to nothing,--if it be only a plant to extort money?"

"Even that ain't anything to laugh at," said Davis. "I 've done a little that way myself, and yet I never saw the fellow who was amused by it."

"So that you really think I ought to go out and see my brother?"

"I'm sure and certain that we must go," said Davis, just giving the very faintest emphasis to the "we."

"But it will cost a pot of money, Grog, even though I should travel in the cheapest way,--I mean, the cheapest way possible for a fellow as well known as I am."

This was a bold stroke; it was meant to imply far more than the mere words announced. It was intended to express a very complicated argument in a mere innuendo.

"That's all gammon," said Grog, rudely. "We don't live in an age of couriers and extra-post; every man travels by rail nowadays, and nobody cares whether you take a coupe or a horse-box; and as to being known, so am I, and almost as well known as most fellows going."

This was pretty plain speaking; and Beecher well knew that Davis's frankness was always on the verge of the only one thing that was worse than frankness.

"After all," said Beecher, after a pause, "let the journey be ever so necessary, I have n't got the money."

"I know you haven't, neither have I; but we shall get it somehow. You 'll have to try Kellett; you 'll have to try Dunn himself, perhaps. I don't see why you should n't start with him. _He_ knows that you ought to confer with my Lord; and he could scarce refuse your note at three months, if you made it--say fifty."

"But, Grog," said Beecher, laying down his cigar, and nerving himself for a great effort of cool courage, "what would suffice fairly enough for one, would be a very sorry allowance for two; and as the whole of my business will be with my own brother,--where of necessity I must be alone with him,--don't you agree with me that a third person would only embarrass matters rather than advance them?"

"No!" said Grog, sternly, while he puffed his cigar in measured time.