A TROT, AND A DIXNER PARTY. 71 



And we peers ought certainly to stick to our privi- 

 leges as we would to our order." 



" Of course we ought," said Jardinier, with sullen 

 and dignified assent, for he was by far too thick 

 headed to perceive, and too conceited to imagine that 

 he could be the subject of mockery to whom he deemed 

 or termed his friends, never having been in all the 

 course of his days, himself, a friend to any man. 



" But wh© ever heard of such time as this ?" contin- 

 ued the good-natured duke, almost repenting the well- 

 deserved, though by the culprit unappreciated, casti- 

 gation which he had inflicted on the stupid and arro- 

 gant lordling. "What do you say to that, Anson — 

 what say you, Forrester?" as these two rode up a lit- 

 tle way in advance of Cheshire's handsome carriage. 

 " A mile done, on a square trot with myself and Colo- 

 nel Fairfax, not an ounce short of 28 stone the two, 

 I'll bet a cool hundi-ed on it, without a word, or a 

 break, or a touch of the whip, in — what do you think ? 

 Not one of you'll believe it — two minutes and thirty- 

 seven seconds !" 



" The deuce !" " You don't say so !" " Whose are 

 they?" "Where do they come from?" And again 

 there was a hubbub of inquiries, admirations, glorifi- 

 cations, and what not, until Fairfax, who had gone 

 out to drive that morning an obscure, and so far as 

 Melton Mowbray was concerned, an almost unknown 

 individual, got out of his wagon at the steps of the 

 club-house, to which he was heartily welcomed, and 

 found himself, as Byron had done before him, on 

 awakening after the publication of Childe Harold, 

 famous. 



Two of his grooms had followed him at a conve- 

 nient distance, and to one of these, hight " Woodruff," 

 a scion of that renowned family of trotting trainers, 

 drivers, and riders, who have won so many laurels on 

 the Centreville course at New York, and the Hunting 



