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It was this sentimentality which always put him at an advantage with his employers. He looked like an exiled prince doing menial service in bitterness of spirit and a turned-down collar. He looked like Lara returned to his own domains to train the horses of a usurper. He looked, in short, like anything but what he was — a selfish, good-for-nothing, lazy scoundrel, who was well up in the useful art of doing the minimum of work, and getting the maximum of wages. He strolled slowly back to his rustic habitation, where he found the softy waiting for him; the kettle boiling upon a handful of bright fire, and some tea-things laid out upon the little round table. Mr. Conyers looked rather contemptuously at the humble preparations. “I’ve mashed the tea for ‘ee,” said the softy; “I thought you’d like a coop.” The trainer shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t say I am particularly attached to the cat-lap,” he said, laughing; “I’ve had rather too much of it when I’ve been in training — half-and-half, warm tea, and cold-drawn castor-oil. I’ll send you into Doncaster for some spirits to-morrow, my man — or to-night, perhaps,” he added, reflectively, resting his elbow upon the table and his chin in the hollow of his hand. He sat for some time in this thoughtful attitude, his retainer, Steeve Hargraves, watching him intently all the while, with that half wondering, half admiring stare with which a very ugly creature — a creature so ugly as to know it is ugly — looks at a very handsome one.