"Jolly little crib, isn't it?" replied Bill; "and though I'm not much in 'fashionable circles,' suits me down to the ground. Wasn't it luck, though, the small-pox and the regimental steeple-chase putting so many of our captains on the sick-list, that they detached a subaltern here to command? We were so short of officers, my boy, I thought the Chief would have made you 'hark back' from Ireland. Don't you wish he had? You'd better have been in bed on the 17th; though, by all accounts, you rode the four miles truly through, and squeezed the old mare as dry as an orange!"
"Gammon!" retorted Daisy. "She had five pounds in hand, only we got jostled at the run-in. I'll make a match to-morrow with Shaneen for any sum they like, same course, same weights, and—— But I'm talking nonsense! I couldn't pay if I lost. I can't pay up what I owe now. I'm done, old boy; that's all about it. When a fellow can't swim any farther, there's nothing for it but to go under!"
His friend pulled a long face, whistled softly, took Venus on his lap, and pondered with all his might.
"Look here, Daisy," was the result of his cogitations; "when you've got to fight a cove two stone above your weight, you don't blunder in at him, hammer-and-tongs, to get your jolly head knocked off in a couple of rounds. No; if you have the condition (and that's everything), you keep dodging, and waiting, and out-fighting, till your man's blown. Then you tackle to, and finish him up before he gets his wind again. Now this is just your case. Ask for leave; the Chief will stand it well enough, if he knows you're in a fix. I'll do your duty, and you must get away somewhere, and keep dark, till we've all had time to turn ourselves round."
"Where can I go to?" said Daisy. "What a queer smell there is in this room, Bill. Something between dead rats and a Stilton cheese."
"Smell!" answered his host. "Pooh; nonsense. That's the badger; he lives in the bottom drawer of my wardrobe. We call him 'Benjamin.' Don't you like the smell of a badger, Daisy?"
Now "Benjamin" was a special favourite with his owner, in consideration of the creature's obstinate and tenacious courage. Bill loved it from his heart, protesting it was the only living thing from which he "took a licking;" because on one occasion, after a very noisy supper, the man had tried, and failed, to "draw" the beast from its lair with his teeth! Therefore, "Benjamin" was now a free brother of the Guild, well cared for, unmolested, living on terms of armed neutrality with the redoubtable Venus herself.
Ignoring as deplorable prejudice Daisy's protest that he did not like the smell of a badger, his friend returned with unabated interest to the previous question.
"You mustn't stay in London, that's clear; though I've heard there's no covert like it to hang in for a fellow who's robbed a church! But it wouldn't suit you. You're not bad enough; besides it's too near Hounslow. The Continent's no use. Travelling costs a hat-full of money, and it's very slow abroad now the fighting's over. A quiet place, not too far from home; that's the ticket!"