iod or other of our lives what it is to
suffer from the painful disparagement our chattels undergo when they become
objects of sale; but no adverse criticism of your bed or your bookcase,
your ottoman or your arm-chair, can approach the sense of pain inflicted by
the impertinent comments on your horse. Every imputed blemish is a distinct
personality, and you reject the insinuated spavin, or the suggested splint,
as imputations on your honour as a gentleman. In fact, you are pushed into
the pleasant dilemma of either being ignorant as to the defects of your
beast, or wilfully bent on an act of palpable dishonesty. When we remember
that every confession a man makes of his unacquaintance with matters
'horsy' is, in English acceptance, a count in the indictment against his
claim to be thought a gentleman, it is not surprising that there will be
men more ready to hazard their characters than their connoisseurship.
'I'll go over myself to Ireland,' said he at last; 'and a week will do
everything.'

CHAPTER LXVIII

THOUGHTS ON MARRIAGE

Lockwood was seated at his fireside in his quarters, the Upper Castle Yard,
when Walpole burst in upon him unexpectedly. 'What! you here?' cried the
major. 'Have _you_ the courage to face Ireland again?'

'I see nothing that should prevent my coming here. Ireland certainly cannot
pretend to lay a grievance to my charge.'

'Maybe not. I don't understand these things. I only know what people say in
the clubs and laugh over at dinner-tables.'

'I cannot affect to be very sensitive as to these Celtic criticisms, and I
shall not ask you to recall them.'

'They say that Danesbury got kicked out, all for your blunders!'

'Do they?' said Walpole innocently.

'Yes; and they declare that if old Daney wasn't the most loyal fellow
breathing, he'd have thrown you over, and owned that the whole mess was of
your own brewing, and that he had nothing to do with it.'

'Do they, indeed, say that?'

'That's not half of it, for they have a story about a woman--some woman
you met down at Kilgobbin--who made you sing rebel songs and take a Fenian
pledge, and give your word of honour that Donogan should be let escape.'

'Is that all?'

'Isn't it enough? A man must be a glutton for tomfoolery if he could not be
satisfied with that.'

'Perhaps you never heard that the chief of the Cabinet took a very
different view of my Irish policy.'

'Irish policy?' cried the other, with lifted eyebrows.