'I think not, sir,' said Frank; 'we had a hole or two in ours, and she didn't come down as fast as we wanted her to always.'
'Besides, you forget, uncle,' added Towzer, 'that she would be a little "taller" even than the tallest rocketer, and you know they are too tall even for you sometimes.'
'Well, you may be right, Snap,' the Admiral allowed, taking no notice of Towzer's insinuations, 'but I'm glad that I shall never be Admiral of a fleet of those crafts.'
'You agree with Dick, sir,' said Snap; '"give me a cayuse," he says, "as'll buck itself out of its girths, as'll buck itself out of its skin, if you like, but no more of them bally balloons for me!"'
'Ah, well! here are our cayuses, Snap, and it is about time that we got into the saddle. It is a good four miles to the Lawn,' remarked Frank; while Towzer, always intent on creature comforts, was anxious to know what Snap would have in his flask.
'No spirits, thank you, old chap,' was the answer. 'I've brought a large supply of good ones of my own. Neither, whisky nor "tip" could compare to the spirits I am in this morning.'
Five minutes later they were in their saddles, the Winthrops in pink, dressed with all that scrupulous neatness which is essential for a soldier or a fox-hunter, and which comes amiss to no one. Snap was more quietly attired, but his was an easy figure for the tailor to fit, and when he rode up with his friends, the connoisseurs of men and of horses, who were chatting and smoking at the meet, decided with one consent that, though there might be a bow where there ought to have been a strap, a button too many or too few, yet, allowing for the fact that he was 'only a colonist,' that young Hales looked a good sort, and 'a workman, sir, all over.'
A 'workman all over.' It's hunting slang, I know, but it is the keynote of the English character still, thank goodness. If you can work and will work, and that work is honest and true, men will respect you, women admire you, and even the most exacting of relations forgive you what one may call vice, another mischief, an indulgent old sailor 'go,' or a Nor'-West cowboy, like Dick, 'sand.'
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