Lordship and confess the intended sin.  As he heard all that was being done, his conscience troubled him sorely.  With pitch of this sort he had never soiled himself before.  He was to have three thousand pounds from Green, and then there would be the bets he himself had laid against the horse,—­by Green’s assistance!  It would be the making of him.  Of what use had been all his ‘square’ work to him?  And then Silverbridge had behaved so badly to him!  But still, as he sat there during the evening, he would have given a hand to have been free from the attempt.  He had no conception before that he could become subject to such misery from such a cause.  He would make it straight with Silverbridge this very night,—­but that Silverbridge was ever lighting fresh cigars and ever having his glass refilled.  It was clear to him that on this night Silverbridge could not be made to understand anything about it.  And the deed in which he himself was to be the chief actor was to be done very early in the following morning.  At last he slunk away to bed.

On the following morning, the morning of the day on which the race was to be run, the Major tapped on his patron’s door about seven o’clock.  Of course there was no answer though the knock was repeated.  When young men overnight drink as much brandy-and-water as Silverbridge had done, and smoke as many cigars, they are apt not to hear knocks at their door made at seven o’clock.  But there was no time, not a minute, to be lost.  Now, within this minute that was pressing on him, Tifto must choose his course.  He opened the door and was standing at the young man’s head.

‘What the d- does this mean?’ said his Lordship angrily, as soon as his visitor had succeeded in waking him.  Tifto muttered something about the horse which Silverbridge failed to understand.  The young man’s condition was by no means pleasant.  His mouth was furred by the fumes of tobacco.  His head was aching.  He was heavy with sleep, and this intrusion seemed to him to be a final indignity offered to him by the man whom he now hated.  ’What business have you to come in here?’ he said, leaning on his elbow.  ’I don’t care a straw for the horse.  If you have anything to say send my servant.  Get out!’

‘Oh;—­very well,’ said Tifto;—­and Tifto got out.

It was about an hour afterwards that Tifto returned, and on this occasion a groom from the stables, and the young Lord’s own servant, and two or three other men were with him.  Tifto had been made to understand that the news was about to be communicated, must be communicated by himself, whether his Lordship were angry or not.  Indeed, after what had been done his Lordship’s anger was not of much moment.  In his present visit he was only carrying out the pleasant little plan which had been arranged for him by Captain Green.  ‘What the mischief is up?’ said Silverbridge, rising in his bed.

Then Tifto told his story, sullenly, doggedly, but still in a perspicuous manner, and with words which admitted of no doubt.  But before he told the story he had excluded all but himself and the groom.  He and the groom had taken the horse out of the stable, it being the animal’s nature to eat his corn better after a slight exercise, and while doing so a nail had been picked up.