ze the fine quality of both
seat and hand, and appeared willing to take him on probation.

"He's got good points," said Mr. Herbert Albert Flick, "but I'd like a
straighter back."

"I'll be hanged, though, Jack," was Mr. Mowbray Russell's comment, "if
I'd ride him in the Park before he's docked. Say what you like about
action, a horse has got to have style."

"Moves easy, falls off a little too much to suit me in the quarter,"
suggested Mr. Pennington Docstater, sucking the head of his cane. "How
about his staying quality, Stalker?"

"That's just where he is, Mr. Docstater; take him on the road, he's a
stayer for all day. Goes like a bird. He'll take you along at the rate
of nine miles in forty-five minutes as long as you want to sit there."

"Jump?" queried little Bobby Simerton, whose strong suit at the club was
talking about meets and hunters.

"Never refused anything I put him at," replied Stalker; "takes every
fence as if it was the regular thing."

Storm was in this way entirely taken to pieces, praised and disparaged,
in a way to give Stalker, it might be inferred from his manner, a
high opinion of the knowledge of these young gentlemen. "It takes a
gentleman," in fact, Stalker said, "to judge a hoss, for a good hoss
is a gentleman himself." It was much discussed whether Storm would do
better for the Park or for the country, whether it would be better to
put him in the field or keep him for a roadster. It might, indeed, be
inferred that Jack had not made up his mind whether he should buy a
horse for use in the Park or for country riding. Even more than this
might be inferred from the long morning's work, and that was that
while Jack's occupation was to buy a horse, if he should buy one his
occupation would be gone. He was known at the club to be looking for
the right sort of a horse, and that he knew what he wanted, and was not
easily satisfied; and as long as he occupied this position he was an
object of interest to sellers and to his companions.

Perhaps Mr. Stalker understood this, for when the buyers had gone he
remarked to the stable-boy, "Mr. Delancy, he don't want to buy no hoss."

When the inspection of the horse was finished it was time for lunch, and
the labors of the morning were felt to justify this indulgence, though
each of the party had other engagements, and was too busy to waste the
time. They went down to the Knickerbocker.

The lunch was slight, but its ordering took time and conside