Captain Dabber. 57 



go to the devil. The sheriff shortly afterwards walked in, 

 and collared the redoubtable steeplechase horses. The 

 following week there was a sale, and then the poor old 

 Dabbers found their hopeful son thrown on their hands 

 once again. The last disappointment about finished them. 

 Not long after, old Dabber died, and was quickly fol- 

 lowed by his wife, and Charles then found himself 

 the proud possessor of Ivy Lodge, a snug little house, 

 with about three hundred acres of land attached to it, 

 and a nice little fortune of some fifteen thousand pounds. 

 The fifteen thousand pounds lasted, as the reader may 

 imagine, having an insight into our friend's mode of life, 

 as many months. (A bad Cambridgeshire, we rather think, 

 gave him his coup de grace.) Ivy Lodge was announced 

 in the local papers as to be let, and its owner disappeared 

 altogether from the scene. There were all manner of 

 conjectures as to what had become of him. Some said he 

 had turned soldier, and had gone to Spain to fight with 

 General Evans. Someone else heard he had been pressed 

 for the navy, and was serving as a common sailor before the 

 mast. Then came a report that he had been in England 

 all the while, after all ; and a story got about that he had 

 been mixed up in some ugly transaction on the Turf, and 

 had been warned off Newmarket Heath. For some years 

 nothing more was heard of him. Ivy Lodge was tenanted 

 by two old maiden ladies, and Charlie was nearly for- 

 gotten. Suddenly, one fine day, he turned up, like a bad 

 shilling, as " What do you think ? A Master of Stag- 

 hounds." In the neighbourhood of London, too. His 

 opening meet was announced with a flourish of trumpets 

 in all the sporting papers, and it coming to the ears of 

 some of his friends in the old country, they determined to 



