"Don't be a fool," Bunny answered, "and don't call me Augustus."
"It's better than Gussy," Bruce declared, and though I should have been glad to contradict him, for I disliked him at sight, there is no doubt that he was right.
"Is the man, who has gone, an elderly undergraduate or only a don?" Bruce went on.
"He's from some stables round the corner. Any one with two eyes could see that."
"Rude as usual; my cousin's the oddest man," Bruce said to Jack.
"Like to buy a horse?" Bunny asked him.
"I'm ready to buy anything if I can sell it at a profit," he answered.
"Well, swallow your breakfast and come and have a look. You'll get your profit all right. I've never known you when you didn't."
In a few minutes we all went to the stables, and Bunny began haggling operations. Bruce bid a "fiver" for Thunderer, and was told he would fetch that for cats' meat, and then the game went on. In the end Bruce said he would give fifteen guineas, and take him to London that day. I nearly seized him by the hand, and told him he was a rare good sort, which I was quite convinced he was not. The livery-stable man did not seem to care what happened as long as Thunderer went away, and I must say that he made the least of his eccentricities.
"That's a bit of luck," Bunny said to me when the bargain was settled, "I get rid of my cousin and a horse on the same day, both real bad lots. He's our family pestilence," and he nodded at Bruce's back.