a good time was coming. Would Harry come down to Tretton and see the old
governor? There was not much to offer him in the way of recreation, but
when September came the partridges would abound. Harry gave a
half-promise that he would go to Tretton for a week, and Augustus
Scarborough expressed himself as much gratified. Harry at the moment
thought of no reason why he should not go to Tretton, and thus
committed himself to the promise; but he afterward felt that Tretton was
of all places the last which he ought just at present to visit.

At last Pitcher and the cheese were gone, and young Scarborough produced
his cigars. "I want to smoke directly I've done eating," he said.
"Drinking goes with smoking as well as it does with eating, so there
need be no stop for that. Now, tell me, Annesley, what is it that you
think about Mountjoy?"

There was an abruptness in the question which for the moment struck
Harry dumb. How was he to say what he thought about Mountjoy
Scarborough, even though he should have no feeling to prevent him from
expressing the truth? He knew, or thought that he knew, Mountjoy
Scarborough to be a thorough blackguard; one whom no sense of honesty
kept from spending money, and who was now a party to robbing his
creditors without the slightest compunction,--for it was in Harry's mind
that Mountjoy and his father were in league together to save the
property by rescuing it from the hands of the Jews. He would have
thought the same as to the old squire,--only that the old squire had not
interfered with him in reference to Florence Mountjoy.

And then there was present to his mind the brutal attack which had been
made on himself in the street. According to his views Mountjoy
Scarborough was certainly a blackguard; but he did not feel inclined