this, Rake," "do that," and he never remember 't isn't done by magic. But he's a true gentleman, Mr. Cecil ; never
grudge a guinea, or a fiver to you ; never out of temper
neither, always have a kind word for you if you want —
thoro'brod every inch of him; see him bring down a
rocketter, or lift his horse over the Broad Water ! He's a gentleman— not like your snobs that have nothing sound
about 'em but their cash, and swept out their shops before
they bought their fine feathers 1— and I'll be d— d if I care
what I do for him.'
With which peroration to his born enemy the stud-groom, with whom he waged a perpetual and most lively feud, Rake flourished the tops that had been under discussion, and tiiumphant, as he invariably was, ran up the back stairs of his master's lodgmgs in Piccadilly, opposite the Green Park, and with a rap on the panels entered his master's bedroom.
A Guardsman at home is always, if anything, rather more luxuriously accommodated than a young Duchess, and Bertie Cecil was never behind his fellows in anything; besides, he was one of the cracks of the Household, and women sent him pretty things enough to fill the Palais Royal. The dressing-table was littered with Bohemian glass and gold-stoppered bottles, and all the perfumes of Araby represented by Breidenbach and Rimmel. The dressing-case was of silver, with the name studded on the lid in turquoises; the brushes, bootjacks, boot-trees, whip-stands, were of ivory and tortoiseshell ; a couple of tiger-skins were on the hearth with a retriever and blue greyhound in possession; above the mantelpiece were crossed swords in all the varieties of gilt, gold, silver, ivory, aluminium, chiselled and embossed hilts; and on the walls were a few perfect French pictures, with the portraits of a greyhound drawn by Landseer, of a steeplechaser by Harry Hall, one or two of Herring's hunters, and two or three fair women in crayons. The hangings of the room were silken and rose-coloured, and a delicious confusion prevailed through it pell-mell-box-spurs, hunting-stirrups, cartridge-cases, curb-chains, muzzle-loaders, hunting-flasks, and white gauntlets being mixed up with Paris novels, pink notes, point-lace ties, bracelets, and bouquets to be dispatched to various destinations, and velvet and silk bags for bank-not o, cigars, or vosuviuns, embroidered by feminine fingers and as useless as [those pretty fingers themselves. On the softest of sofas, half
