ifto's story,--and as he kept his ground, there
were some few who believed it.

But though the story was so far good, he had at moments been
imprudent, and had talked when he should have been silent. The whole
matter had been a torment to him. In the first place his conscience
made him miserable. As long as it had been possible to prevent the
evil he had hoped to make a clean breast of it to Lord Silverbridge.
Up to this period of his life everything had been "square" with him.
He had betted "square," and had ridden "square," and had run horses
"square." He had taken a pride in this, as though it had been a great
virtue. It was not without great inward grief that he had deprived
himself of the consolations of these reflections! But when he had
approached his noble partner, his noble partner snubbed him at every
turn,--and he did the deed.

His reward was to be three thousand pounds,--and he got his money.
The money was very much to him,--would perhaps have been almost
enough to comfort him in his misery, had not those other rascals
got so much more. When he heard that the groom's fee was higher
than his own, it almost broke his heart. Green and Villiers, men of
infinitely lower standing,--men at whom the Beargarden would not have
looked,--had absolutely netted fortunes on which they could live
in comfort. No doubt they had run away while Tifto still stood his
ground;--but he soon began to doubt whether to have run away with
twenty thousand pounds was not better than to remain with such
small plunder as had fallen to his lot, among such faces as those
which now looked upon him! Then when he had drunk a few glasses of
whisky-and-water, he said something very foolish as to his power of
punishing that swindler Green.

An attempt had been made to induce Silverbridge to delay the payment
of his bets;--but he had been very eager that they should be paid.
Under the joint auspices of Mr. Lupton and Mr. Moreton the horses
were sold, and the establishment was annihilated,--with considerable
loss, but with great despatch. The Duke had been urgent. The Jockey
Club, and the racing world, and the horsey fraternity generally,
might do what seemed to them good,--so that Silverbridge was
extricated from the matter. Silverbridge was extricated,--and the
Duke cared nothing for the rest.

But Silverbridge could not get out of the mess quite so easily as
his father wished. Two questions arose about Major Tifto, outside
the racing world