John went, but not down-stairs, as suggested—a mere lateral movement that ended at the keyhole.
"Well, but, sir," said Walter, half-reproachfully, "it was you elicited my views."
"Confound your views, sir, and—your impudence! You're in the right, and I am in the wrong" (this admission with a more ill-used tone than ever). "It's the race-horses. Ring the bell. What sawneys you young fellows are! it used not to take six minutes to ring a bell when I was your age."
Walter, thus stimulated, sprang to the bell-rope, and pulled it all down to the ground with a single gesture.
The Colonel burst out laughing, and that did him good; and Mr. Baker answered the bell like lightning; he quite forgot that the bell must have rung fifty yards from the spot where he was enjoying the dialogue.
"Send me the steward, John; I saw him pass the window."
Meantime the Colonel marched up and down with considerable agitation. Walter, who had a filial heart, felt very uneasy, and said, timidly, "I am truly sorry, father, that I answered your questions so bluntly."
"I'm not, then," said the Colonel. "I hold him to be less than a man who flies from the truth, whether it comes from young lips or old. I have faced cavalry, sir, and I can face the truth."
At this moment the steward entered. "Jackson," said the Colonel, in the very same tone he was speaking in, "put up my race-horses to auction by public advertisement."
"But, sir, Jenny has got to run at Derby, and the brown colt at Nottingham, and the six-year-old gelding at a handicap at Chester, and the chestnut is entered for the Syllinger next year."