ssed strictly for dinner. They had spent a great
part of the day handling the hounds and the horses, dressing wounds,
curing sores, and ministering to canine ailments, and had been
detained over their work too long to think of their toilet. As it
was they had an eye to business. The stables at one corner and the
kennels at the other were close to the little garden, and the doings
of a man and a boy who were still at work among the animals could be
directed from the armchairs on which the two sportsmen were sitting.

It must be explained that ever since the Silverbridge election
there had been a growing feeling in Tifto's mind that he had been
ill-treated by his partner. The feeling was strengthened by the
admirable condition of Prime Minister. Surely more consideration had
been due to a man who had produced such a state of things!

"I wouldn't quarrel with him, but I'd make him pay his way," said the
prudent Captain.

"As for that, of course he does pay--his share."

"Who does all the work?"

"That's true."

"The fact is, Tifto, you don't make enough out of it. When a small
man like you has to deal with a big man like that, he may take it out
of him in one of two ways. But he must be deuced clever if he can get
it both ways."

"What are you driving at?" asked Tifto, who did not like being called
a small man, feeling himself to be every inch a Master of foxhounds.

"Why, this!--Look at that d---- fellow fretting that 'orse with a
switch. If you can't strap a 'orse without a stick in your hand,
don't you strap him at all, you--" Then there came a volley of abuse
out of the Captain's mouth, in the middle of which the man threw down
the rubber he was using and walked away.

"You come back," halloed Tifto, jumping up from his seat with his
pipe in his mouth. Then there was a general quarrel between the man
and his two masters, in which the man at last was victorious. And the
horse was taken into the stable in an unfinished condition. "It's
all very well to say 'Get rid of him,' but where am I to get anybody
better? It has come to such a pass that now if you speak to a fellow
he walks out of the yard."

They then returned to the state of affairs, as it was between Tifto
and Lord Silverbridge. "What I was saying is this," continued the
Captain. "If you choose to put yourself up to live with a fellow like
that on equal terms--"

"One gentleman with another, you mean?"

"Put it so. It don't quite hit it off, but