Mr Facey Romford's Hounds Read Online Free PDF Page B

vacillated between the Blue Posts in Cork Street, John o’ Groat’s in Rupert Street, and Soapey Sponge’s in Jermyn Street. Still he never could find Soapey at home. Call early, call late, call when he would, he was never to be seen. Lucy was charged with excuses, and she did her spiriting so kindly and gently that Facey almost began to be reconciled to not seeing him. Still, sivin pun ten was a deal of money, a deal at any time, a great deal to a man who had just been defrauded of an ample fortune, and had to begin the world afresh. Ah, indeed! groaned Facey, as he lay in his attic bed above the ham and beef shop at his new lodging in Beak Street, thinking it over. What should it be? If that old scoundrel hadn’t deceived him he might have made a great fortune as a civil engineer; been a second Stephenson or Brunel; for our friend had a good opinion of his abilities,—few men better. Facey was quite puzzled what to do. He couldn’t return to his theodolite, to levels and surveys—
    And drag at each remove a lengthening chain.
    He wouldn’t mind being an auctioneer, or station-master, if there was a good salary and he could steal away for a little shooting now and then. He wouldn’t mind being a chief constable, or even a super, if they would let him hunt his horse occasionally,—could trap a thief with any one. His decided forte , however, was for dogs and horses. He wouldn’t mind a farm, provided he had the game also; but then, under this confounded new system of improvement, it required capital; so did a horse-dealer, so did everything. That was what floored him. In vain he thought of something horsey, out-of-doorish and exhilarating, that could be worked without any money; nothing of the sort ever occurred to him.
    A man’s bright ideas generally come when he least expects them; they occur to some in shaving, some in smoking, some in thinking, some in batting, some in boating. Romford caught inspiration by staring into a saddler’s shop window in Oxford Street. There he saw sundry busy men in their shirt sleeves, sewing and stitching and hammering away at saddles and horsey things. These being interesting to horsey men, he stuck his thumbs into his armlets and stood straddling and eyeing the operation, looking at saddles in every stage of advancement, from the trees up to the final finish. “Dash it, why shouldn’t I be a saddler?” thought he; “could fit one on as well as any man.” And then the confounded money question arose again.
    Well, but he might be master of the horse to some great man who had not as much leisure and experience as himself. That would do! Mr Romford master of the horse to an earl or a duke say. That would sound well! Would buy the horses and the forage, pocket the percentage, and ride for nothing. And he was half inclined to step into Wilkinson and Kidd’s and ask if they knew of anything of the sort,—ask as if it were for a friend,—a young man in whom he took an interest. While he was thus cogitating, his keen eye caught sight of a man fitting a hunting-horn to a saddle, which carried him away on the moment. From the horse to the hound is an easy and natural transition, which, coupled with the mastership of the horse, then uppermost in Facey’s mind, struck the train of thought right into the kennel line, and caused him to hit off the idea of being a master of hounds. A master of hounds! That was the thing—the very thing for his money!—or rather, his no money—and he gave his great thigh a slap that sounded like the report of a pistol. “Well done, ingenuity!” cried he, swinging his right arm about, sending an old apple-woman into the gutter, as he rolled away from the window, feeling a new, renovated, regenerated man. A pack of hounds was the very thing to his mind, the very thing of all others that he would have liked best if he had got that wicked old man’s money, though he