"Yes—Thompson," replied Mr. Gage.
"Ah!" returned Harriet, "he was well brought up; it would be his own fault if he did not learn to understand horses here."
"Did Captain Gage keep the lad I recommended him?" asked Mr. Singleton.
"Not long," replied Mr. Gage. "I never saw any thing so wretched as my father's management of his stables. He never bought a horse that he was not palpably cheated; and, if he chanced to buy a good one, the animal would be ruined, with that lame old sailor at the head of affairs."
"Don't say one word against Captain Gage," exclaimed Harriet. "Whatever he does is sure to be better than any body else. I do not mean wiser, Mr. Gage, but better. Perhaps no one else would choose to have a lame sailor with one eye to superintend his stables. It shows he has more kindness than his neighbours."
"He might have pensioned the old fellow, if he was so fond of him, instead of keeping him to do mischief," said Mr. Gage; pleased, however, with the tribute to his father's goodness of heart. "He once ruined a splendid pointer of mine with his nonsense; and even Hubert, a fellow who has spent his life in a frigate, could not help seeing how things were going on."
Here Mr. Humphries, whose extraordinary face had brightened up as much as it could, during this discussion, attempted to express incoherently, his admiration of Captain Gage's conduct.
"Depend on it, Mr. Humphries," said Harriet, "that sailors are the best people extant. They are all that is left of the romance of warfare. Like the knights of the Middle Ages, there is a simple reality about them that does not belong to the present time."
"Harriet means to say, they are the only people who are not humbugs," said Evan Conway, translating his sister's remark.
"It is very true, Miss Conway," said Mr. Humphries; who, it need not be said, did not understand one word that she had uttered; "I always liked sailors very much. Don't you think Miss Capel would be generally considered pretty?"