Old John heard me, and told me Oddington was sold, house, garden, estate, and all." Colonel Clifford snorted.
Walter resumed, modestly but firmly: "I was thirteen; I used to fish in a brook that ran near Drayton Park.
One day I was fishing there, when a brown velveteen chap stopped me, and told me I was trespassing.

'Trespassing ?' said I.'I have fished here all my life; I am Walter Clifford, and this belongs to my father.' 'Well,' said the man, 'I've heerd it did belong to Colonel Clifford onst, but now it belongs to Muster Mills; so you must fish in your own water, young gentleman, and leave ourn to us as owns it.' Till I was eighteen I used to shoot snipes in a rushy bottom near Calverley Church.

One day a fellow in black velveteen, and gaiters up to his middle, warned me out of that in the name of Muster Cannon." Colonel Clifford, who had been drumming on the table all this time, looked uneasy, and muttered, with some little air of compunction: "They have plucked my feathers deucedly, that's a fact.

Hang that fellow Stevens, persuading me to keep race-horses; it's all his fault.

Well, sir, proceed with your observations." "Well, I inquired who could afford to buy what we were too poor to keep, and I found these wealthy purchasers were all in _trade_, not one of them a gentleman." "You might have guessed that," said Colonel Clifford: "it is as much as a gentleman can do to live out of jail nowadays." "Yes, sir," said Walter.