."

"It has its advantages."

"Oh dear, yes. There is no trouble, you know. Everything done for
you. No servants to look after,--except just the fellow who brings
you your breeches and rides your second horse." Mr. Pepper never had
a second horse, or a man of his own to bring him his breeches, but
the allusion did not on that account vex him. "And then you can do
what you like a great deal more than you can in a house of your own."

"I should say so," remarked Mr. Pepper.

"I tell you what it is, Fred," continued Ralph, becoming very
confidential. "I don't mind telling you, because you are a man who
understands things. There isn't such a great pull after all in having
a property of your own."

"I shouldn't mind trying it,--just for a year or so," said Mr.
Pepper.

"I suppose not," said Ralph, chuckling in his triumph. "And yet there
isn't so much in it. What does it amount to when it's all told? You
keep horses for other fellows to ride, you buy wine for other fellows
to drink, you build a house for other fellows to live in. You've a
deal of business to do, and if you don't mind it you go very soon to
the dogs. You have to work like a slave, and everybody gets a pull at
you. The chances are you never have any ready money, and become as
stingy as an old file. You have to get married because of the family,
and the place, and all that kind of thing. Then you have to give
dinners to every old fogy, male and female, within twenty miles
of you, and before you know where you are you become an old fogy
yourself. That's about what it is."

"You ought to know," said Mr. Pepper.

"I've been expecting it all my life,--of course. It was what I was
born to, and everybody has been telling me what a lucky fellow I am
since I can remember. Now I've got it, and I don't find it comes to
so very much. I shall always look back upon the dear old Moonbeam,
and the B. B., and Hossy's wonderful port wine with regret. It hasn't
been very swell, you know, but it's been uncommonly cosy. Don't you
think so?"

"You see I wasn't born to anything better," said Mr. Pepper.

Just at this moment Cox and Fooks came out of the house. They had
not as yet breakfasted, but had thought that a mouthful of air in
the stable-yard might enable them to get through their toast and
red herrings with an amount of appetite which had not as yet been
vouchsafed to them. Second and third editions of that wonderful port
had been produced on the previous eveni