flat, without knowledge of men and the world,
but a fellow with both eyes open, and who has gone through as smart a
course of education as any man in the ring. Take up the Racing Calendar,
and show me any one, since Huckaback beat Crim. Con., that ever got it
so 'hot' as I have. No, no, my Lady, it won't do, preaching to me about
'life.' If _I_ don't know a thing or two, who does? If you 'd have had
your wits about you, Spicer, that's what you 'd have told her."

"I'm not so ready at a pinch as you are, my Lord," muttered Spicer, who
affected sullenness.

"Few are, Master Spicer,--very few are, I can tell you;" and in the
pleasure of commending and complimenting himself and his own great
gifts, Beecher speedily ceased to remember. What so lately had annoyed
him. "Dine here at seven, Spicer," said he, at last, "and I'll present
you to my Lady. She 'll be amused with _you_." Though the last words
were uttered in a way that made their exact significance somewhat
doubtful, Mr. Spicer never sought to canvass them; he accepted the
invitation in good part, for he was one of those men who, though they
occasionally "quarrel with their bread-and-butter," are wise enough
never to fall out with their truffles.

CHAPTER XXIX. THE TWO VISCOUNTESSES

When the new Viscount had dismissed Mr. Spicer, he set out to visit his
sister-in-law. Any one who has been patient enough to follow the stages
of this history will readily imagine that he did not address himself
to the task before him with remarkable satisfaction. If it had been a
matter to be bought off by money, he would readily have paid down a good
round sum as forfeit. It was no use fortifying himself, as he tried to
do, by all the commonplaces he kept repeating to his own heart, saying,
"She ain't my guardian. I'm no ward to be responsible to _her_. She can
exercise no control over me or my property. She 's the dowager, and
no more." All the traditions of his younger brother life rose up in
rebellion against these doctrines, and he could think of her as nothing
but the haughty Viscountess, who had so often pronounced the heaviest
censures upon his associates and his mode of living. A favorite theory
of his was it, also, in olden time, to imagine that, but for Georgina,
Lackington would have done this, that, and t'other for him; that she it
was who thwarted all his brother's generous impulses, and brought him
to look with stern disfavor on his life of debt and dissipation.