born cheats,--regular legs! They drag their feet along, all weary
and tired; if you push them a bit, they shut up, or they answer the whip
with a kind of shrug, as if to say, 'It ain't any use punishing me at
all,' the while they go plodding in, at the tail of the others, till
within five, or maybe four lengths of the winning-post, and then you see
them stretching--it ain't a stride, it's a stretch--you can't say how
it's done, but they draw on--on--on, till you see half a head in front,
and there they stay--just doing it--no more."

"Mumps is exactly--"

"Klepper,--remember, he's Klepper," said Grog, mildly.

"Klepper, to be sure,--how can I forget it?"

"I hope that fellow Conway is off," said Grog.

"Yes, he started by the train for Liege,--third class too,--must be
pretty hard up, I take it, to travel that way."

"Good enough for a fellow that has been roughing it in the ranks these
two years."

"He's a gentleman, though, for all that," broke in Beecher.

"And Strawberry ran at Doncaster, and I saw him t' other day in a 'bus.
Now, I 'd like to know how much better he is for having once been a
racer?"

"Blood always tells--"

"In a horse, Beecher, in a horse, not in a man. Have n't I got a deal of
noble blood in my veins?--ain't I able to show a thoroughbred pedigree?"
said he, mockingly. "Well, let me see the fellow will stand at eight
paces from the muzzle of a rifle-pistol more cool, or who'll sight his
man more calm than I will." There was a tinge of defiance in the way
these words were said that by no means contributed to the ease of him
who heard them.

"When do we go for Brussels, Grog?" asked he, anxious to change the
subject.

"Here's the map of the country," said Davis, producing a card scrawled
over with lines and figures. "Brussels, the 12th and 14th; Spa, the
20th; Aix, the 25th. Then _you_ might take a shy at Dusseldorf, _I_
can't; I winged a Prussian major there five years ago, and they won't
let me in. I 'll meet you at Wiesbaden, and we 'll have a week at the
tables. You 'll have to remember that I 'm Captain Christopher so long
as we're on the Rhine; once at Baden, 'Richard's himself again!'"

"Is this for either of you, gentlemen?" said the waiter, presenting an
envelope from the telegraph-office.

"Yes; I'm Captain Davis," said Grog, as he broke the seal.

"'Is the Dean able to preach?--may we have a collection?--Telegraph
back.--Tom,'" read? Davis, slowly, aloud; and then adde