Chapter Thirteen.“My Daughter and my Son-in-Law.”“Moonshine!” said the trainer, with a puzzled look after the departing doctor. “Laughing like an idiot. Rum how it takes different people. Here’s my stepping lady looking as if she meant to take pyson in her five o’clock tea, the doctor regularly off his chump, and I dessay someone’ll go home by train to-night, load a revolver, and—click! All over. Well, they shouldn’t meddle with what they don’t understand. Reg’lar gambling, and they deserve all they get. Hullo! You here again?”This to the pink-coated tout, who came smiling and cringing up to the door.“Brought yer a tip. Something good, Mr Simpkins, sir.”“Yah! Rubbish! My book’s chock.”“But it’s the tippiest tip, sir, as ever was,” whispered the man from behind his hand. “Worth a Jew’s eye.”“I’m fly, Dinny,” said the trainer, with a wink. “Tell it to some one else. I don’t trade to-day.”“You’ll repent it, Mr Sam, sir,” whispered the man, earnestly, and with many nods and jerks of the head, as he kept looking about furtively to see that they were not overheard.“Of course. All right,” said the trainer, contemptuously. “Down on your luck, eh, Dinny?”“Terrible, sir.”“Want a drink?”The man smiled, and drew the back of a dirty hand across his cracked and fevered lips.“Go round to the tap and say I sent you. Here, twist those cards round.”The man obeyed promptly, and after placing the point of his black lead-pencil to his lips the trainer scrawled laboriously: “One drink.—S.S.”“Used to be private bar—once,” muttered the man, with an eager, thirsty look in his bleared and bloodshot eyes.“Thank ye, Mr Sam, sir, and good luck to yer. My word, what a beauty she have growed, sir! Lady T.’s nothing to her.”“Right you are, Dinny,” said the trainer, smiling proudly, as his child came tripping down the staircase as light, flowery, and iridescent in colours as a clever, fashionable modiste and milliner could make her, regardless of expense, after being ordered to produce something “spiff” for the races. “She’ll take the shine out of some of ’em.”“Shine, sir!” cried the tout, in his genuine admiration of the pretty, rosy-faced, rustic little beauty. “Why, she’ll put ’em out like a silver ’stinguisher. Thank ye, Mr Sam, sir,” he continued, as in his satisfaction at the praise and the pleasure felt over an anticipated grand coup, the trainer’s heart opened, and he slipped a florin into the tout’s hand. “You wouldn’t buy my tip, sir, but I’ll give it to the little gal I’ve knowed since she was as high as one of your quart pots. Good luck to you, my beauty! You lay gloves or guineas on your pretty namesake—La Sylphide’s the winner. You’re clippers, both on you, that you are. Tlat!”The last was a smack of the lips as the tout went from the door on his way to the tap, and in anticipation of the draught that would cool his parching throat.“Nasty old man!” cried the little bouquet of a body, exhaling scent all round, as she tripped to the trainer’s side, raised herself on tiptoe, with her delicate, rose-coloured gloves on his shoulders, and gave him a couple of rapid kisses. “There, dad, shall I do?”“Oh, yes, you’ll do,” said the trainer, grimly; “but don’t you get putting anything on La Sylphide.”“Not going to, daddy,” said the girl, merrily, and making three or four breakdown steps she brought a little foot down on the floor with a light pat. “I’ve put all on her that she’s going to win to-day. Now, say I look fit as a fairy.”“Out and out. There’ll be nothing to-day as can touch yer. But—”“Ah, you mustn’t—you shan’t!” cried the charming little thing, dashing at her father as he uttered thatbutin a growl. “We’ve had it out together, and made it up, and kissed, and you shan’t scold me any more.”“I dunno ’bout that,” said the trainer, walking round his daughter admiringly, while she mockingly and mincingly drew herself up to be inspected, looking as if she were on a London stage, the focus of every eye in an applauding house.“Ah, it’s all very well for you to come kittening round me, my gal, but it warn’t square, after what I’ve done, for you to go courting and marrying on the sly.”“But I had hundreds of offers and heaps of presents from all over London, dad, and I wouldn’t take one of them—the offers, I mean.”“Of course; but you took the presents—”The girl nodded and winked merrily.“You didn’t send them back?”“Likely!” said the girl. “But lots of ’em were stupid bunches of flowers, bouquets—buckets—and they were all squirmy next day.”“But to go and get married to a little bit of a boy like that!”“But I was obliged to marry somebody, daddy,” cried the girl, petulantly. “And you saw how he used to admire me and be always coming.”“Of course, my gal, but I didn’t think it meant any more than lots more did.”“But we just matched so nicely, daddy.”“Humph!” in a regular bearish grunt.“And we did love one another so.”“Yah! Sweetstuff! Well, it’s done, and it can’t be undone.”“No, dad. I don’t want it to be, and you won’t when you get used to Syd. Now you’re going to be a good loving old boy and say no more about it.”“I dunno so much about that.”“You’d better, dad.”“Oh, had I?”“Yes; if you don’t kiss me again and be friends I’ll cry, and spoil everything I’ve got on, and won’t go to the races.”“You’d better!”“I will,” cried the girl, with her eyes flashing, and her little cupid-bow-like mouth compressed in a look of determination. “No, I won’t. I’ll go into hysterics, and scream the house down. I’ll make such a scene!”“You be quiet, you saucy hussy. There, it’s the races, and I’ve got a lot of business to see to. But, look here, your place is along with your husband.”“Well, that’s where I’m going to be,” said the girl, with a merry look. “I went over on my bike this morning and saw him.”“Oh, that’s where you were off to?”“Yes, and Syd’s promised to be a good boy, and come over to see you to-day and have it out.”“Oh, is he? Well, that’s right, but I don’t want him to-day. I’m too busy. Look ye here, though, my gal, I mean to see that you have your rights. You just wait till I get my young gentleman under my thumb. I’ll give him the thumbscrew, and—”“Here he is!” cried the girl, joyfully; and with a frisk like a lamb in a May-field she danced to the boy, who hurried in breathlessly. “Oh, Syd, Syd, Syd!”The beauty of the dress was forgotten, as a pair of prettily plump arms were thrown round the young husband’s neck, while, ignoring the big, ugly, scowling parent, the new arrival did his part in a very loving hug and an interchange of very warm, honey-moony kisses.The recipients were brought to their senses by a growl. “Well, that’s a pretty performance in public, young people.”“Public!” cried the girl. “Pooh! Only you, daddy, and you don’t count.”“Public-house,” said Syd. “How d’ye do, Mr Simpkins?”“Never you mind how I do, nor how I don’t, young gentleman. You and me’s got to have a few words of a sort.”“All right, Mr Simpkins,” cried Syd, cheerfully, as he drew back to the full extent of his and his young wife’s joined hands to inspect her in front, and, with the girl’s aid, behind. “Lovely!” he whispered, and the girl flushed with delight, as she kept on tripping, posturing, and dancing, as if trying to draw her husband on into a pas de deux, or a pas de fascination in a ballet, he being apparently quite willing to join in and finish off with another embrace.“Drop it, Molly,” cried the old man. “Now, sir, what have you got to say for yourself?”“Nothing!” cried Syd, without turning his head; but he did the next moment. “I say, Sam, don’t she look lovely?”“Sam, eh? Well, you’re a cool ’un, ’pon my soul!”“Oh, daddy, don’t!” cried the girl, pettishly.“But I shall. Here, he marries you without coming to me first with ‘by your leave’ or ‘with your leave.’”“But hasn’t he come now, daddy? You always used to say you wished you’d got a boy, and now you’ve got one—a beauty. Ain’t you, Syd?”“Stunner.”“Will you hold your tongue, Molly! You’ve got a worse clack than your mother had.”“Then do come and do the proper. You kneel down, Syd, and I’ll lean on your shoulder. I ain’t going to spoil my dress for nobody, not even a cross old dad. That’s right. Down on your knees, Syd.”“Shan’t. I want to put my arm round you.”“Very well; that’ll do. Now then, come on, daddy, and say: ‘Bless you, my children!’ Curtain.”“What? What d’yer mean by ‘curtain?’ You hold your tongue, miss. Now, Mr Sydney Smithers. Smithers! There’s a name for a respectable girl to want to take!”“Well, hang it!” cried the boy, “it’s better than Simpkins.”“Not it,” growled the owner of the latter; but he scratched his head, as if in doubt. “Be quiet, Molly. Now, Mr Smithers, I mean my gal to have her rights.”“Yes, Mr Simpkins.”“Get it over, Syd.”“Yes, sir; I quite agree with you.”“That’s right, then, so far; but what I say is that you ought to have come straight to me, as her father, and ‘Mr Simpkins,’ says you, ‘I’ve took a great fancy to your filly’—daughter, I mean—‘and I’m going to make proposals for her ’and,’ you says.”“Yes, Mr Simpkins; I’m very much attached to your daughter and I’ve married her.”“No, you didn’t, young gentleman,” cried the old man, irascibly. “That’s just what you ought to have done.”“Yes, exactly, Mr Simpkins; but, I say, what are you doing to-day about the big race?”“Never you mind about no big race, young fellow. I want to know what you’re going to do about the human race. You’ve married my gal candlestine, as they call it, and I want to know about settlements. You don’t expect I’m going to keep you and your wife and family?”“Well, he won’t let me,” said Syd, in response to a whisper.“Of course he won’t,” said the trainer. “Not likely. You’re a gentleman, I suppose. You won’t want to do nothing for your living.”“Oh, I don’t know,” said Syd.“Well, that means you will. That sounds better. But you won’t want to come and live here and help serve behind my bar?”“No, I’m blest if I do!”“Oh, dad, drop it,” cried the girl.“No, nor I shan’t drop it, miss, till I’ve seen about your rights. Suppose you mean him to come to London and begin figgering on the stage along with you?”“I don’t, dad.”“Well, I’m glad you’ve got so much sense in your head, my gal, for, you mark my words, he’s the wrong sort. Too short and fat.”“Dad!”“Well, so he is, my gal. I dunno what you sees in him.”“Oh!” ejaculated the girl, and she turned her back, snatched Syd’s tie undone, and began to retie it, as she whispered; “Oh, do finish it all, Syd. I want to get good places on the stand.”“Perhaps,” continued the trainer, “I might make you of some use among the ’osses after a bit. But you’d have to train, and get rid of a stone of that fat.”“Fat!” cried Syd, indignantly.“Oh, dad, what a shame!” cried the young wife, with tears in her eyes. “Never mind what he says, Syd. You’re not fat.”“Yes, he is, miss; too fat for a light-weight. But I don’t want him to be always quarrelling with. Put it the other way, then. What’s your people going to do for you?”“Don’t know,” said the boy, taking out his cigarette-case.“No, o’ course you don’t; that’s what I’m a-saying. You don’t. But I do. That’s where it is. There, don’t get smoking them nasty, rubbishing things in my ’all and making it not fit for a gent as knows what’s what to come in. Smoke one of them.”The trainer drew a handful of big dark cigars with gold bands from his breast-pocket, and held them out for the lad to take one, which he did readily.“Thank ye. Partagas, sir?”“Oh, you do know something, then?” growled the trainer, biting off the end and proceeding to strike a match, which he held ready, so that he and his son-in-law could join ends, and draw in a friendly way, much to the satisfaction of the young lady, who smiled to herself and said—“They’re coming round.”“Suppose we shake hands now, Mr Simpkins, and say done,” cried Syd, blowing a big cloud in his father-in-law’s face.“Don’t you be in a hurry, young fellow. As I was a-saying, about your people. Do you think my lady, your aunt, will find you in money to keep house for a trainer’s daughter?”“N-n-no,” said Syd, sadly.“No, it is, young man. If you’d wanted to be secketary to a society for the propergation o’ something or another, she’d be all there with a big subscription; but she won’t give yer tuppence now.”“No, but uncle will,” cried Syd, eagerly. “He’s the right sort.”“Him? Tchah! Why, my lady won’t let him have enough to pay his own tailor’s bills. I know all about that. What about the old man?”“Grandfather?”“Yes. S’pose you took Molly down promiscus like, and showed him her paces; he might take a fancy to her, eh?”“Yes,” cried Molly. “Capital, father! Syd will take me down to see his grandfather. Won’t you, Syd?”“Take you anywhere, darling; only not to-day.”“Who said to-day, little stupid? There, now, it’s all right, ain’t it, dad?”“Don’t you be in such a flurry, my gal; ’tain’t whipping and spurring like mad as gets you first past the post. Steady does it. Now, young gentleman, look here.”“Oh, dear me, dad, how you do like to talk!” cried the girl, pettishly.“Do you hear me, sir? Leave the girl alone. You don’t want everyone to know you’re just married—hugging her that how.”“Yes, I do, all the world and everybody,” cried Syd. “We’re married, but we’re awfully in love with each other still—aren’t we, darling?”“Awfully, Syd,” cried Molly, hanging to him.“Well, I s’pose that’s all right,” grumbled the trainer, “and of course what’s done, as I said afore, can’t be undone. But, look here; I mean my gal to have her rights.”“Of course, sir.”“And I understand you mean to do the proper thing by her?”“Yes, dad. To be sure he does, and you’re going to be ever so proud of Syd—proud as I am.”“Well, I don’t quite know that, but I’ve got something else to think about now, and so, after what you’ve said square and ’andsome, young gen’leman, here’s my ’art and here’s my ’and.”The trainer illustrated his last words by putting his left hand upon his chest, too low down to satisfy an anatomist, and holding out his right.“There,” he continued, after the business of shaking hands had been gone through, “all this talking has made me husky, so we’ll have a glass of fizz, son-in-law, in honour of the occasion, just to wash it down.”“No, no, no, no!” cried the girl. “Syd and I want to get out on the common to see all the races.”“Bah! You two won’t be thinking about the races, I know. Look here, though, son-in-law. Some day, I’ll give you the right tip;” and then, in a whisper from behind his hand, “Jim Crow—the dark horse.”“What for?”“What for?” cried the trainer, contemptuously. “Why, the cup.”“Nonsense?”“That’s right, boy.”“No, no,” cried Syd, giving his young wife’s arm a hug. “La Sylphide.”“Out of it. Jock in a straight weskit.”“Out of it be hanged, sir! She runs to win, with Uncle Hilton up.”“Come along, Syd,” cried Molly, and the pair ran out like a couple of schoolchildren, nearly cannoning against Mark Willows, who was coming up with Sir Hilton’s bag and overcoat, and making him turn to look after them, while Sam Simpkins stood gasping like a great, red-faced carp which had leaped out of the edge of a pond and landed in an element not suited to its nature.
“Moonshine!” said the trainer, with a puzzled look after the departing doctor. “Laughing like an idiot. Rum how it takes different people. Here’s my stepping lady looking as if she meant to take pyson in her five o’clock tea, the doctor regularly off his chump, and I dessay someone’ll go home by train to-night, load a revolver, and—click! All over. Well, they shouldn’t meddle with what they don’t understand. Reg’lar gambling, and they deserve all they get. Hullo! You here again?”
This to the pink-coated tout, who came smiling and cringing up to the door.
“Brought yer a tip. Something good, Mr Simpkins, sir.”
“Yah! Rubbish! My book’s chock.”
“But it’s the tippiest tip, sir, as ever was,” whispered the man from behind his hand. “Worth a Jew’s eye.”
“I’m fly, Dinny,” said the trainer, with a wink. “Tell it to some one else. I don’t trade to-day.”
“You’ll repent it, Mr Sam, sir,” whispered the man, earnestly, and with many nods and jerks of the head, as he kept looking about furtively to see that they were not overheard.
“Of course. All right,” said the trainer, contemptuously. “Down on your luck, eh, Dinny?”
“Terrible, sir.”
“Want a drink?”
The man smiled, and drew the back of a dirty hand across his cracked and fevered lips.
“Go round to the tap and say I sent you. Here, twist those cards round.”
The man obeyed promptly, and after placing the point of his black lead-pencil to his lips the trainer scrawled laboriously: “One drink.—S.S.”
“Used to be private bar—once,” muttered the man, with an eager, thirsty look in his bleared and bloodshot eyes.
“Thank ye, Mr Sam, sir, and good luck to yer. My word, what a beauty she have growed, sir! Lady T.’s nothing to her.”
“Right you are, Dinny,” said the trainer, smiling proudly, as his child came tripping down the staircase as light, flowery, and iridescent in colours as a clever, fashionable modiste and milliner could make her, regardless of expense, after being ordered to produce something “spiff” for the races. “She’ll take the shine out of some of ’em.”
“Shine, sir!” cried the tout, in his genuine admiration of the pretty, rosy-faced, rustic little beauty. “Why, she’ll put ’em out like a silver ’stinguisher. Thank ye, Mr Sam, sir,” he continued, as in his satisfaction at the praise and the pleasure felt over an anticipated grand coup, the trainer’s heart opened, and he slipped a florin into the tout’s hand. “You wouldn’t buy my tip, sir, but I’ll give it to the little gal I’ve knowed since she was as high as one of your quart pots. Good luck to you, my beauty! You lay gloves or guineas on your pretty namesake—La Sylphide’s the winner. You’re clippers, both on you, that you are. Tlat!”
The last was a smack of the lips as the tout went from the door on his way to the tap, and in anticipation of the draught that would cool his parching throat.
“Nasty old man!” cried the little bouquet of a body, exhaling scent all round, as she tripped to the trainer’s side, raised herself on tiptoe, with her delicate, rose-coloured gloves on his shoulders, and gave him a couple of rapid kisses. “There, dad, shall I do?”
“Oh, yes, you’ll do,” said the trainer, grimly; “but don’t you get putting anything on La Sylphide.”
“Not going to, daddy,” said the girl, merrily, and making three or four breakdown steps she brought a little foot down on the floor with a light pat. “I’ve put all on her that she’s going to win to-day. Now, say I look fit as a fairy.”
“Out and out. There’ll be nothing to-day as can touch yer. But—”
“Ah, you mustn’t—you shan’t!” cried the charming little thing, dashing at her father as he uttered thatbutin a growl. “We’ve had it out together, and made it up, and kissed, and you shan’t scold me any more.”
“I dunno ’bout that,” said the trainer, walking round his daughter admiringly, while she mockingly and mincingly drew herself up to be inspected, looking as if she were on a London stage, the focus of every eye in an applauding house.
“Ah, it’s all very well for you to come kittening round me, my gal, but it warn’t square, after what I’ve done, for you to go courting and marrying on the sly.”
“But I had hundreds of offers and heaps of presents from all over London, dad, and I wouldn’t take one of them—the offers, I mean.”
“Of course; but you took the presents—”
The girl nodded and winked merrily.
“You didn’t send them back?”
“Likely!” said the girl. “But lots of ’em were stupid bunches of flowers, bouquets—buckets—and they were all squirmy next day.”
“But to go and get married to a little bit of a boy like that!”
“But I was obliged to marry somebody, daddy,” cried the girl, petulantly. “And you saw how he used to admire me and be always coming.”
“Of course, my gal, but I didn’t think it meant any more than lots more did.”
“But we just matched so nicely, daddy.”
“Humph!” in a regular bearish grunt.
“And we did love one another so.”
“Yah! Sweetstuff! Well, it’s done, and it can’t be undone.”
“No, dad. I don’t want it to be, and you won’t when you get used to Syd. Now you’re going to be a good loving old boy and say no more about it.”
“I dunno so much about that.”
“You’d better, dad.”
“Oh, had I?”
“Yes; if you don’t kiss me again and be friends I’ll cry, and spoil everything I’ve got on, and won’t go to the races.”
“You’d better!”
“I will,” cried the girl, with her eyes flashing, and her little cupid-bow-like mouth compressed in a look of determination. “No, I won’t. I’ll go into hysterics, and scream the house down. I’ll make such a scene!”
“You be quiet, you saucy hussy. There, it’s the races, and I’ve got a lot of business to see to. But, look here, your place is along with your husband.”
“Well, that’s where I’m going to be,” said the girl, with a merry look. “I went over on my bike this morning and saw him.”
“Oh, that’s where you were off to?”
“Yes, and Syd’s promised to be a good boy, and come over to see you to-day and have it out.”
“Oh, is he? Well, that’s right, but I don’t want him to-day. I’m too busy. Look ye here, though, my gal, I mean to see that you have your rights. You just wait till I get my young gentleman under my thumb. I’ll give him the thumbscrew, and—”
“Here he is!” cried the girl, joyfully; and with a frisk like a lamb in a May-field she danced to the boy, who hurried in breathlessly. “Oh, Syd, Syd, Syd!”
The beauty of the dress was forgotten, as a pair of prettily plump arms were thrown round the young husband’s neck, while, ignoring the big, ugly, scowling parent, the new arrival did his part in a very loving hug and an interchange of very warm, honey-moony kisses.
The recipients were brought to their senses by a growl. “Well, that’s a pretty performance in public, young people.”
“Public!” cried the girl. “Pooh! Only you, daddy, and you don’t count.”
“Public-house,” said Syd. “How d’ye do, Mr Simpkins?”
“Never you mind how I do, nor how I don’t, young gentleman. You and me’s got to have a few words of a sort.”
“All right, Mr Simpkins,” cried Syd, cheerfully, as he drew back to the full extent of his and his young wife’s joined hands to inspect her in front, and, with the girl’s aid, behind. “Lovely!” he whispered, and the girl flushed with delight, as she kept on tripping, posturing, and dancing, as if trying to draw her husband on into a pas de deux, or a pas de fascination in a ballet, he being apparently quite willing to join in and finish off with another embrace.
“Drop it, Molly,” cried the old man. “Now, sir, what have you got to say for yourself?”
“Nothing!” cried Syd, without turning his head; but he did the next moment. “I say, Sam, don’t she look lovely?”
“Sam, eh? Well, you’re a cool ’un, ’pon my soul!”
“Oh, daddy, don’t!” cried the girl, pettishly.
“But I shall. Here, he marries you without coming to me first with ‘by your leave’ or ‘with your leave.’”
“But hasn’t he come now, daddy? You always used to say you wished you’d got a boy, and now you’ve got one—a beauty. Ain’t you, Syd?”
“Stunner.”
“Will you hold your tongue, Molly! You’ve got a worse clack than your mother had.”
“Then do come and do the proper. You kneel down, Syd, and I’ll lean on your shoulder. I ain’t going to spoil my dress for nobody, not even a cross old dad. That’s right. Down on your knees, Syd.”
“Shan’t. I want to put my arm round you.”
“Very well; that’ll do. Now then, come on, daddy, and say: ‘Bless you, my children!’ Curtain.”
“What? What d’yer mean by ‘curtain?’ You hold your tongue, miss. Now, Mr Sydney Smithers. Smithers! There’s a name for a respectable girl to want to take!”
“Well, hang it!” cried the boy, “it’s better than Simpkins.”
“Not it,” growled the owner of the latter; but he scratched his head, as if in doubt. “Be quiet, Molly. Now, Mr Smithers, I mean my gal to have her rights.”
“Yes, Mr Simpkins.”
“Get it over, Syd.”
“Yes, sir; I quite agree with you.”
“That’s right, then, so far; but what I say is that you ought to have come straight to me, as her father, and ‘Mr Simpkins,’ says you, ‘I’ve took a great fancy to your filly’—daughter, I mean—‘and I’m going to make proposals for her ’and,’ you says.”
“Yes, Mr Simpkins; I’m very much attached to your daughter and I’ve married her.”
“No, you didn’t, young gentleman,” cried the old man, irascibly. “That’s just what you ought to have done.”
“Yes, exactly, Mr Simpkins; but, I say, what are you doing to-day about the big race?”
“Never you mind about no big race, young fellow. I want to know what you’re going to do about the human race. You’ve married my gal candlestine, as they call it, and I want to know about settlements. You don’t expect I’m going to keep you and your wife and family?”
“Well, he won’t let me,” said Syd, in response to a whisper.
“Of course he won’t,” said the trainer. “Not likely. You’re a gentleman, I suppose. You won’t want to do nothing for your living.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Syd.
“Well, that means you will. That sounds better. But you won’t want to come and live here and help serve behind my bar?”
“No, I’m blest if I do!”
“Oh, dad, drop it,” cried the girl.
“No, nor I shan’t drop it, miss, till I’ve seen about your rights. Suppose you mean him to come to London and begin figgering on the stage along with you?”
“I don’t, dad.”
“Well, I’m glad you’ve got so much sense in your head, my gal, for, you mark my words, he’s the wrong sort. Too short and fat.”
“Dad!”
“Well, so he is, my gal. I dunno what you sees in him.”
“Oh!” ejaculated the girl, and she turned her back, snatched Syd’s tie undone, and began to retie it, as she whispered; “Oh, do finish it all, Syd. I want to get good places on the stand.”
“Perhaps,” continued the trainer, “I might make you of some use among the ’osses after a bit. But you’d have to train, and get rid of a stone of that fat.”
“Fat!” cried Syd, indignantly.
“Oh, dad, what a shame!” cried the young wife, with tears in her eyes. “Never mind what he says, Syd. You’re not fat.”
“Yes, he is, miss; too fat for a light-weight. But I don’t want him to be always quarrelling with. Put it the other way, then. What’s your people going to do for you?”
“Don’t know,” said the boy, taking out his cigarette-case.
“No, o’ course you don’t; that’s what I’m a-saying. You don’t. But I do. That’s where it is. There, don’t get smoking them nasty, rubbishing things in my ’all and making it not fit for a gent as knows what’s what to come in. Smoke one of them.”
The trainer drew a handful of big dark cigars with gold bands from his breast-pocket, and held them out for the lad to take one, which he did readily.
“Thank ye. Partagas, sir?”
“Oh, you do know something, then?” growled the trainer, biting off the end and proceeding to strike a match, which he held ready, so that he and his son-in-law could join ends, and draw in a friendly way, much to the satisfaction of the young lady, who smiled to herself and said—
“They’re coming round.”
“Suppose we shake hands now, Mr Simpkins, and say done,” cried Syd, blowing a big cloud in his father-in-law’s face.
“Don’t you be in a hurry, young fellow. As I was a-saying, about your people. Do you think my lady, your aunt, will find you in money to keep house for a trainer’s daughter?”
“N-n-no,” said Syd, sadly.
“No, it is, young man. If you’d wanted to be secketary to a society for the propergation o’ something or another, she’d be all there with a big subscription; but she won’t give yer tuppence now.”
“No, but uncle will,” cried Syd, eagerly. “He’s the right sort.”
“Him? Tchah! Why, my lady won’t let him have enough to pay his own tailor’s bills. I know all about that. What about the old man?”
“Grandfather?”
“Yes. S’pose you took Molly down promiscus like, and showed him her paces; he might take a fancy to her, eh?”
“Yes,” cried Molly. “Capital, father! Syd will take me down to see his grandfather. Won’t you, Syd?”
“Take you anywhere, darling; only not to-day.”
“Who said to-day, little stupid? There, now, it’s all right, ain’t it, dad?”
“Don’t you be in such a flurry, my gal; ’tain’t whipping and spurring like mad as gets you first past the post. Steady does it. Now, young gentleman, look here.”
“Oh, dear me, dad, how you do like to talk!” cried the girl, pettishly.
“Do you hear me, sir? Leave the girl alone. You don’t want everyone to know you’re just married—hugging her that how.”
“Yes, I do, all the world and everybody,” cried Syd. “We’re married, but we’re awfully in love with each other still—aren’t we, darling?”
“Awfully, Syd,” cried Molly, hanging to him.
“Well, I s’pose that’s all right,” grumbled the trainer, “and of course what’s done, as I said afore, can’t be undone. But, look here; I mean my gal to have her rights.”
“Of course, sir.”
“And I understand you mean to do the proper thing by her?”
“Yes, dad. To be sure he does, and you’re going to be ever so proud of Syd—proud as I am.”
“Well, I don’t quite know that, but I’ve got something else to think about now, and so, after what you’ve said square and ’andsome, young gen’leman, here’s my ’art and here’s my ’and.”
The trainer illustrated his last words by putting his left hand upon his chest, too low down to satisfy an anatomist, and holding out his right.
“There,” he continued, after the business of shaking hands had been gone through, “all this talking has made me husky, so we’ll have a glass of fizz, son-in-law, in honour of the occasion, just to wash it down.”
“No, no, no, no!” cried the girl. “Syd and I want to get out on the common to see all the races.”
“Bah! You two won’t be thinking about the races, I know. Look here, though, son-in-law. Some day, I’ll give you the right tip;” and then, in a whisper from behind his hand, “Jim Crow—the dark horse.”
“What for?”
“What for?” cried the trainer, contemptuously. “Why, the cup.”
“Nonsense?”
“That’s right, boy.”
“No, no,” cried Syd, giving his young wife’s arm a hug. “La Sylphide.”
“Out of it. Jock in a straight weskit.”
“Out of it be hanged, sir! She runs to win, with Uncle Hilton up.”
“Come along, Syd,” cried Molly, and the pair ran out like a couple of schoolchildren, nearly cannoning against Mark Willows, who was coming up with Sir Hilton’s bag and overcoat, and making him turn to look after them, while Sam Simpkins stood gasping like a great, red-faced carp which had leaped out of the edge of a pond and landed in an element not suited to its nature.
Chapter Fourteen.The Trainer’s Tips.“Nonsense!” gasped the trainer, as soon as he could get his breath after the staggerer he had received. “The boy’s in love—mad—don’t know what he’s a-saying of.”“Well, I’m blest!” said Mark, turning round with a grin on his face. “He’s begun to crow early. Day, Mr Simpkins. I say—”Mark did not say anything, but winked and jerked his thumb over his right shoulder in the direction the young couple had taken.“What do you want?” growled the trainer, surlily.“Room for the guv’nor—Sir Hilton Lisle, Bart—to dress for the race.”“Then it is true,” said the trainer to himself, as to hide his face from the groom he turned his back, walked to a bell-handle, and pulled it violently before returning.“Got a lot on our mare, eh, Mr Simpkins?”“No!” growled the trainer. “I heered she was not going to run.”“Knowing ones ain’t always right, sir.”At that moment the chambermaid appeared.“Room for Sir Hilton Lisle,” cried the trainer, hoarsely. “Put him in number one. Well, this is a facer!” he muttered, as he turned away. “I must have a drop for this,” and he hurried into the bar.“Hullo, my dear,” cried Mark. “My word, what a cap! I say, what’s the matter with the boss?”“He’s got a sore head,” said the chambermaid, sharply. “I never see such a bear.”“He’s been backing the wrong horse, I know,” said Mark.“Then you don’t know nothing about it, Mr Clever. Here, I’ve got one for you.”The speaker led the way up the stairs into the open gallery, to pause at the top by the door of the room her master had named, Mark following with the bag and overcoat.“Well, let’s have it,” said Mark.“Why, I should ha’ thought you must ha’ known.”“Known what—as my guv’nor’s going on the Turf again?”“Bother the Turf! I’m sick of the name. No; master’s found out about Miss Molly.”“Eh? What about her?”“Married! How do you like that?”“Never tried yet, my dear. But who to?”“Who to, indeed! A chit of a boy.”“Wha-a-at!” cried Mark, and a light broke upon him as he recalled what he had just seen. “Not our Master Syd?”“Right first time.”“Oh, here’s a game,” began Mark. “Quick, here’s master, and I haven’t put out his duds.”The groom dashed through the door the girl threw open just as Sir Hilton, who had been to the paddock, came up to the porch ready to meet the trainer, who was coming from the bar wiping his lips with the back of his hand.“It’s all up!” he groaned to himself.“Ah, Sam Simpkins, how are you? Surprised to see me here again, eh?”“Sur-prised ain’t the word for it, Sir Hilton,” cried the trainer, making an effort to look landlordly, and speaking in boisterous tones. “Staggered, Sir Hilton. That’s nearer the mark; but come in, Sir Hilton. Puts me in mind o’ the good old days. My word! Who’d ha’ thought it? I jest heered of it. And you’re going to ride, Sir Hilton?”“I am, Sam.”“Your old mare, Sir Hilton?”“No,” said Sir Hilton, frowning. “My old friend Lady Tilborough’s mare, in consequence of—”“Yes, I heered, Sir Hilton; her jockey, Josh Rowle’s been on the drink again. Dear, dear! I keep a house, but what I say to people who come to my bar or to the tap is—”“Yes—yes, I know. My man here?”“Yes, Sir Hilton. Up in your old room, number one. But, ahem! Beg pardon, Sir Hilton, you can trust me,” said the trainer, dropping his voice. “Do you, eh—understand me, Sir Hilton—man who’s seen a deal o’ business for you—you—you don’t ride to win?”“Why, you—”“Ah, Hilt, dear boy!” cried Lady Tilborough, hurrying in. “I saw you come up to the porch, but couldn’t overtake you. Man of your word.”“I hope so,” said Sir Hilton, turning to give the old trainer a withering look.“Oh, murder!” muttered the man, wiping his brow, now all covered with a heavy dew. “What shall I do? It’s a smasher.”“Seen our beauty?” said Lady Tilborough.“Yes; I’ve been to look. She’s in splendid form.”“Thank you, old man; that does me good.”“A bit too fine, though,” continued Sir Hilton, who had been watching the trainer narrowly, and seeing his state and guessing the cause, felt a little compassionate. “What do you say, Sam?”“Well, Sir Hilton, if you ask me, I say I haven’t had her training lately, but I’ll give you, an old patron, my honest opinion—not a bit, sir—and if you’ll take my advice you’ll play a quiet game with the mare. That’s the winning card.”“Nonsense!” cried Sir Hilton, contemptuously.“Just listen to him, my lady. Here has he been out of the game all this time, while I’ve been watching La Sylphide’s work at every race. I asks you, my lady, Is there anyone as knows the mare’s action, temper and staying powers better than me?”“He’s right there, Hilt,” said Lady Tilborough.“To some extent, yes,” said the gentleman addressed.“Thank ye, Sir Hilton. Then look here; nobody would like to see you come first past the post more than your old trainer.”“Would you, Sam?” said Sir Hilton, with a queer look at the speaker.“All right, Sir Hilton. I understand yer alloosion. I may’ve got a bit on Jim Crow, consequent upon the misfortune to Josh Rowle; but,” he continued, closing one eye meaningly, “I can put that right easy. You win the race, Sir Hilton, and I’ll make a pot of money by it. I know the ropes.”“You do, Sam,” said the baronet, laughing.“And I’m glad of the charnsh to do a good turn to a couple o’ noble patrons who have put many a hundred into my pocket. Look here, Sir Hilton, there’s plenty of time yet. I am at your service. Just you take me to the mare, and let me have a few minutes with her.”“The mare is not my property, Sam,” said Sir Hilton, laughing.“Of course not, Sir Hilton. I forgot. What do you say, my lady? That there Jim Crow’s a good horse, and La Sylphide hasn’t the wind she had.”“Indeed!” said Lady Tilborough.“It’s a fact, my lady. What she wants is holding in and a waiting game,andjust something as—you know, Sir Hilton—for the roosh at the last, as’ll take her in a couple o’ lengths ahead.”“Yes, I understand,” said Sir Hilton, drily.“You hear, my lady? I want you to win.”“Thank you, Simpkins,” said Lady Tilborough, gravely. “I am greatly obliged.”“And I’m to just take the mare in hand for you,” said the man, who, in his excitement, could not restrain his eagerness.“Well, no, thank you, Simpkins,” said the lady, quietly. “You were always a very good trainer, and I made a good deal of money in the past, but I have a very trustworthy man now, and he might object to your interference at the eleventh hour.”“Oh, I could soon make it right with him, my lady,” said the trainer, quickly.“No doubt, Sam Simpkins,” said the lady, meaningly, “but I should be sorry to have my man’s morals assailed.”“I don’t understand you, my lady.”“Then I’ll speak more plainly, Simpkins. I am not disposed to lay my man open to temptation.”“What! Does your ladyship mean to insinuate that I’d do anything that warn’t quite square?”“I insinuate nothing, Sam Simpkins. I only go so far as to say that you are not my servant now, and that I would not trust you in the least.”“Hark at that now!” cried the trainer, turning up his eyes to the sporting trophies on the walls, and unconsciously letting them rest on the grinning mask of an old fox. Then “Ain’t you got a word to say for me, Sir Hilton? I has my faults, I know, but no man living would say I couldn’t be trusted. You allus found me right, Sir Hilton.”“Always, Sam, when it suited your book.”“Well, I am!” exclaimed the trainer.“Yes, Sam, an awful old scamp,” said Lady Tilborough, laughing. “Thank you, my man. You’ve got your favourite, I’ve got mine, and the man to ride her straight and square as an English gentleman should ride an English horse.”“All right, Sir Hilton. All right, my lady. Sorry I tried to give advice gratis for nothing; only mind this, both of you, if La Sylphide breaks down or Sir Hilton here loses his nerve through being out of training, don’t you blame me.”“Don’t be alarmed, Simpkins,” said Lady Tilborough, in a tone which made the trainer draw back a step or two. “Here, Hilton.”“Yes.”“A horrible thought. What about your weight?” she whispered.“Went straight to the scales and tried,” he replied, in the same lowered tone. “Right to an ounce.”“Ha!” ejaculated Lady Tilborough, with a sigh of relief and a glance back to see if the trainer was out of hearing. “Now then, off to your room and get into your silk. Mind, you must keep cool and you must win.”“I’m trying my best. But I can’t help thinking. My wife!”“Oh! Kiss your wife, man—when you get back. Never mind her now.”“But if by any chance she hears?”“Let her hear when the race is run. She must hear afterwards, of course. Wives and husbands are out of court now. Remember your four thou’.”“I do,” said Sir Hilton, with a groan.“Ah! would you!” cried Lady Tilborough. “You’ve got to face the thing anyhow, and listen, here’s your position: It’s meeting the poor, severe darling with the race lost, or meeting her with it won. Which will you do?”“Of course,” cried Sir Hilton, eagerly. “I see.”“You’re yourself again. Now, one more word—that man has backed Jim Crow heavily. You understand?”“Of course.”“And Jim Crow’s rather a dangerous horse; but if you keep cool, and in your old form, the race is ours.”“Yes; I feel it now.”“Then you know. Keep her clear, and let her have her own old way.”“Then I’m off yonder. You’ll meet me there. I’ve a hankering to be at her side, for fear of the possibility of anyone getting at her even now.”“No fear of that. Off with you!”Lady Tilborough held out her hand, and Granton entered quickly.“Silk ho!” he cried.Sir Hilton nodded shortly and ran actively up the stairs.“Bravo!” said the doctor. “Hilt looks his old self. Cool as a—you know.”“Don’t say another word to me, Granton, till the race is over,” said the lady, pleadingly.“I understand,” he said, and they went off straight for the paddock, while as soon as the chamber door in the gallery had been shut sharply upon his master by Mark Willows, Simpkins slipped out of the bar entry, looking flushed and strange.“Too late to do anything now,” he groaned to himself. “My head seems to be going—all of a buzz. Hedge heavily or chance it. Which? Which? Oh, what in the name of thunder shall I do?”
“Nonsense!” gasped the trainer, as soon as he could get his breath after the staggerer he had received. “The boy’s in love—mad—don’t know what he’s a-saying of.”
“Well, I’m blest!” said Mark, turning round with a grin on his face. “He’s begun to crow early. Day, Mr Simpkins. I say—”
Mark did not say anything, but winked and jerked his thumb over his right shoulder in the direction the young couple had taken.
“What do you want?” growled the trainer, surlily.
“Room for the guv’nor—Sir Hilton Lisle, Bart—to dress for the race.”
“Then it is true,” said the trainer to himself, as to hide his face from the groom he turned his back, walked to a bell-handle, and pulled it violently before returning.
“Got a lot on our mare, eh, Mr Simpkins?”
“No!” growled the trainer. “I heered she was not going to run.”
“Knowing ones ain’t always right, sir.”
At that moment the chambermaid appeared.
“Room for Sir Hilton Lisle,” cried the trainer, hoarsely. “Put him in number one. Well, this is a facer!” he muttered, as he turned away. “I must have a drop for this,” and he hurried into the bar.
“Hullo, my dear,” cried Mark. “My word, what a cap! I say, what’s the matter with the boss?”
“He’s got a sore head,” said the chambermaid, sharply. “I never see such a bear.”
“He’s been backing the wrong horse, I know,” said Mark.
“Then you don’t know nothing about it, Mr Clever. Here, I’ve got one for you.”
The speaker led the way up the stairs into the open gallery, to pause at the top by the door of the room her master had named, Mark following with the bag and overcoat.
“Well, let’s have it,” said Mark.
“Why, I should ha’ thought you must ha’ known.”
“Known what—as my guv’nor’s going on the Turf again?”
“Bother the Turf! I’m sick of the name. No; master’s found out about Miss Molly.”
“Eh? What about her?”
“Married! How do you like that?”
“Never tried yet, my dear. But who to?”
“Who to, indeed! A chit of a boy.”
“Wha-a-at!” cried Mark, and a light broke upon him as he recalled what he had just seen. “Not our Master Syd?”
“Right first time.”
“Oh, here’s a game,” began Mark. “Quick, here’s master, and I haven’t put out his duds.”
The groom dashed through the door the girl threw open just as Sir Hilton, who had been to the paddock, came up to the porch ready to meet the trainer, who was coming from the bar wiping his lips with the back of his hand.
“It’s all up!” he groaned to himself.
“Ah, Sam Simpkins, how are you? Surprised to see me here again, eh?”
“Sur-prised ain’t the word for it, Sir Hilton,” cried the trainer, making an effort to look landlordly, and speaking in boisterous tones. “Staggered, Sir Hilton. That’s nearer the mark; but come in, Sir Hilton. Puts me in mind o’ the good old days. My word! Who’d ha’ thought it? I jest heered of it. And you’re going to ride, Sir Hilton?”
“I am, Sam.”
“Your old mare, Sir Hilton?”
“No,” said Sir Hilton, frowning. “My old friend Lady Tilborough’s mare, in consequence of—”
“Yes, I heered, Sir Hilton; her jockey, Josh Rowle’s been on the drink again. Dear, dear! I keep a house, but what I say to people who come to my bar or to the tap is—”
“Yes—yes, I know. My man here?”
“Yes, Sir Hilton. Up in your old room, number one. But, ahem! Beg pardon, Sir Hilton, you can trust me,” said the trainer, dropping his voice. “Do you, eh—understand me, Sir Hilton—man who’s seen a deal o’ business for you—you—you don’t ride to win?”
“Why, you—”
“Ah, Hilt, dear boy!” cried Lady Tilborough, hurrying in. “I saw you come up to the porch, but couldn’t overtake you. Man of your word.”
“I hope so,” said Sir Hilton, turning to give the old trainer a withering look.
“Oh, murder!” muttered the man, wiping his brow, now all covered with a heavy dew. “What shall I do? It’s a smasher.”
“Seen our beauty?” said Lady Tilborough.
“Yes; I’ve been to look. She’s in splendid form.”
“Thank you, old man; that does me good.”
“A bit too fine, though,” continued Sir Hilton, who had been watching the trainer narrowly, and seeing his state and guessing the cause, felt a little compassionate. “What do you say, Sam?”
“Well, Sir Hilton, if you ask me, I say I haven’t had her training lately, but I’ll give you, an old patron, my honest opinion—not a bit, sir—and if you’ll take my advice you’ll play a quiet game with the mare. That’s the winning card.”
“Nonsense!” cried Sir Hilton, contemptuously.
“Just listen to him, my lady. Here has he been out of the game all this time, while I’ve been watching La Sylphide’s work at every race. I asks you, my lady, Is there anyone as knows the mare’s action, temper and staying powers better than me?”
“He’s right there, Hilt,” said Lady Tilborough.
“To some extent, yes,” said the gentleman addressed.
“Thank ye, Sir Hilton. Then look here; nobody would like to see you come first past the post more than your old trainer.”
“Would you, Sam?” said Sir Hilton, with a queer look at the speaker.
“All right, Sir Hilton. I understand yer alloosion. I may’ve got a bit on Jim Crow, consequent upon the misfortune to Josh Rowle; but,” he continued, closing one eye meaningly, “I can put that right easy. You win the race, Sir Hilton, and I’ll make a pot of money by it. I know the ropes.”
“You do, Sam,” said the baronet, laughing.
“And I’m glad of the charnsh to do a good turn to a couple o’ noble patrons who have put many a hundred into my pocket. Look here, Sir Hilton, there’s plenty of time yet. I am at your service. Just you take me to the mare, and let me have a few minutes with her.”
“The mare is not my property, Sam,” said Sir Hilton, laughing.
“Of course not, Sir Hilton. I forgot. What do you say, my lady? That there Jim Crow’s a good horse, and La Sylphide hasn’t the wind she had.”
“Indeed!” said Lady Tilborough.
“It’s a fact, my lady. What she wants is holding in and a waiting game,andjust something as—you know, Sir Hilton—for the roosh at the last, as’ll take her in a couple o’ lengths ahead.”
“Yes, I understand,” said Sir Hilton, drily.
“You hear, my lady? I want you to win.”
“Thank you, Simpkins,” said Lady Tilborough, gravely. “I am greatly obliged.”
“And I’m to just take the mare in hand for you,” said the man, who, in his excitement, could not restrain his eagerness.
“Well, no, thank you, Simpkins,” said the lady, quietly. “You were always a very good trainer, and I made a good deal of money in the past, but I have a very trustworthy man now, and he might object to your interference at the eleventh hour.”
“Oh, I could soon make it right with him, my lady,” said the trainer, quickly.
“No doubt, Sam Simpkins,” said the lady, meaningly, “but I should be sorry to have my man’s morals assailed.”
“I don’t understand you, my lady.”
“Then I’ll speak more plainly, Simpkins. I am not disposed to lay my man open to temptation.”
“What! Does your ladyship mean to insinuate that I’d do anything that warn’t quite square?”
“I insinuate nothing, Sam Simpkins. I only go so far as to say that you are not my servant now, and that I would not trust you in the least.”
“Hark at that now!” cried the trainer, turning up his eyes to the sporting trophies on the walls, and unconsciously letting them rest on the grinning mask of an old fox. Then “Ain’t you got a word to say for me, Sir Hilton? I has my faults, I know, but no man living would say I couldn’t be trusted. You allus found me right, Sir Hilton.”
“Always, Sam, when it suited your book.”
“Well, I am!” exclaimed the trainer.
“Yes, Sam, an awful old scamp,” said Lady Tilborough, laughing. “Thank you, my man. You’ve got your favourite, I’ve got mine, and the man to ride her straight and square as an English gentleman should ride an English horse.”
“All right, Sir Hilton. All right, my lady. Sorry I tried to give advice gratis for nothing; only mind this, both of you, if La Sylphide breaks down or Sir Hilton here loses his nerve through being out of training, don’t you blame me.”
“Don’t be alarmed, Simpkins,” said Lady Tilborough, in a tone which made the trainer draw back a step or two. “Here, Hilton.”
“Yes.”
“A horrible thought. What about your weight?” she whispered.
“Went straight to the scales and tried,” he replied, in the same lowered tone. “Right to an ounce.”
“Ha!” ejaculated Lady Tilborough, with a sigh of relief and a glance back to see if the trainer was out of hearing. “Now then, off to your room and get into your silk. Mind, you must keep cool and you must win.”
“I’m trying my best. But I can’t help thinking. My wife!”
“Oh! Kiss your wife, man—when you get back. Never mind her now.”
“But if by any chance she hears?”
“Let her hear when the race is run. She must hear afterwards, of course. Wives and husbands are out of court now. Remember your four thou’.”
“I do,” said Sir Hilton, with a groan.
“Ah! would you!” cried Lady Tilborough. “You’ve got to face the thing anyhow, and listen, here’s your position: It’s meeting the poor, severe darling with the race lost, or meeting her with it won. Which will you do?”
“Of course,” cried Sir Hilton, eagerly. “I see.”
“You’re yourself again. Now, one more word—that man has backed Jim Crow heavily. You understand?”
“Of course.”
“And Jim Crow’s rather a dangerous horse; but if you keep cool, and in your old form, the race is ours.”
“Yes; I feel it now.”
“Then you know. Keep her clear, and let her have her own old way.”
“Then I’m off yonder. You’ll meet me there. I’ve a hankering to be at her side, for fear of the possibility of anyone getting at her even now.”
“No fear of that. Off with you!”
Lady Tilborough held out her hand, and Granton entered quickly.
“Silk ho!” he cried.
Sir Hilton nodded shortly and ran actively up the stairs.
“Bravo!” said the doctor. “Hilt looks his old self. Cool as a—you know.”
“Don’t say another word to me, Granton, till the race is over,” said the lady, pleadingly.
“I understand,” he said, and they went off straight for the paddock, while as soon as the chamber door in the gallery had been shut sharply upon his master by Mark Willows, Simpkins slipped out of the bar entry, looking flushed and strange.
“Too late to do anything now,” he groaned to himself. “My head seems to be going—all of a buzz. Hedge heavily or chance it. Which? Which? Oh, what in the name of thunder shall I do?”
Chapter Fifteen.Mephistopheles at Work.What the trainer did was to return to the bar and swallow a glass of gin and bitters hastily, before returning to his favourite seat in the hall, when he pulled out betting-book and pencil, threw one swollen leg over the other, and began to chew the lead and try to master the figures which would not stand still to be reckoned up.“Nice day for the races,” said a voice, as the door was darkened. “How are you, Simpkins?”The trainer looked up angrily, saw that it was an old client and friend, and replied surlily: “Morn’n. They’ll attend to you in the bar. Oh, dear!” he muttered, “I can’t hedge now.”The visitor glanced quickly round to see that they were alone, and then pressed up close to the trainer. “Pst! Look here, Sam Simpkins.”“Didn’t I tell you they’d see to you in the bar?” growled the trainer.“Yes; but I want another fifty on Jim Crow, if you can do it.”“Eh? Yes, of course,” cried the trainer, completely changing his tone and manner; then, turning over a few leaves, he clumsily made an entry in his book.“Close on the run,” he said apologetically.—“Horrid busy. There you are. Ten fives. All right, Mr Trimmer.”“Not in my way, as a rule, Mr Simpkins,” said Lady Lisle’s agent, with a weak grin; “but a little flutter, as you call it, is pleasant and exciting—a nice change from the humdrum of business life.”“And very profitable too, eh, Mr Trimmer?”“Yes; I’ve not done badly, Sam—thanks to you, old friend.”“No, you haven’t; but go and get your glass and be off, please,” said the trainer, finishing the deposit of the crisp new banknotes by placing them in a pocket-book, drawing on the tight elastic with a loud snap, buttoning the book up in his breast, and giving the place a slap, which seemed to bring out a sigh of relief.“I won’t drink this morning, thank you, Sam. I’ll go out on the common at once. How does Jim Crow look?”“Splendid; but be off, please. I’m busy,” growled the trainer.“I understand. I shall find you here after the race. Short settlements, eh?”“Always on spot. Take and give sharp; that’s my motter,” replied the trainer, bending down over his betting-book again without paying further heed to his client, who nodded, smiled at the chamber maid in the gallery, and went out softly.“A bit back,” muttered the trainer, with the ghost of a grin on his stubbly face, as soon as he was alone. “But like nothing—like nothing,” he grumbled. “One drop in a pint pot. But let’s see; let’s see.”He had not been immersed in his calculations again five minutes when there was a hurried step, and Lady Lisle’s agent came in, looking ghastly.“Oh, there you are, Sam,” he said, hurriedly. “I’ve been on the common and I’ve changed my mind.”“Eh? What?” said the trainer, looking up fiercely.“That fifty I put on Jim Crow. I’ll put on La Sylphide instead.”“Too late, sir. Bet booked. I never alter my entries. What’s the matter?”“I thought Jim Crow was such a perfectly safe horse, but I hear—”A gasp stopped the man’s utterance. “Well, what have you heered?”“That—that Lady Tilborough’s horse is going to run after all.”“Lady Tilborough’s mare’s scratched, they say, Mr Trimmer.”“No, no. I have it on the best authority. She’s going to run.”“Oh, they say anything in the ring. Don’t you take no notice. You’ve put your money on a good horse, and you’ve got to chance it, of course. I’ve a big pot on there.”“So I hear, Mr Simpkins,” said the agent; “but I’m a poor man. I only bet on sure things, and I must withdraw this bet.”“Too late, sir; can’t be done now.”“But it must; it must I will have it back,” cried the agent, fiercely.“Here, none of that,” said the trainer, with a savage growl. “You come to me, sir—made your bet, and I’ve booked it.”“But I stand to lose five hundred pounds, man,” cried the agent, frantically. “Give me my money back.”“Not a cent, sir. Chance it.”“I heard that Josh Rowle was too bad to ride.”“That’s true enough, sir.”“I—I don’t understand,” cried Trimmer; “but I will not stir from here without those notes. Give me my fifty pounds.”He caught the trainer with both hands by the coat. “Steady, my lad,” growled Simpkins. “Don’t be a fool. This is ’sault and battery, and, if I liked, I could lay you down with an ugly rap between the eyes. Steady!” he continued, with a grim smile overspreading his coarse and brutal face. “I begin to see now how it is. My, how queer! Your guv’nor must be going to ride.”“What! Nonsense! Something to turn me off the scent. I will have my money back.”“You won’t, Master Trimmer—not a cent; and look here, if you make that row you’ll have Sir Hilton out here to know what’s the matter.”“Sir Hilton?” cried the man, staring wildly.“Yes; he’s up there in number one, dressing for the race.”“A lie! An excuse! Give me my money!” and he clutched at the trainer so fiercely that the bar and chamber maids came to the bar door to see.“Ony a gent a bit upset about a bit o’ coin, my dears. Here, Mary, tell Mr Trimmer, here, who’s dressing in number one.”“Sir Hilton Lisle, sir,” replied the maid, and Trimmer’s hands dropped from the trainer’s coat. “Anyone with him, my gal?”“Yes, sir. Mark Willows, Sir Hilton’s groom.”The agent dropped into a chair, looking as if he were going to have a fit.“Gent’s a bit poorly. Excitement. That’ll do, my gals. Stop, one of you bring him a nip of my gin and bitters.”The two maids, well accustomed to such scenes, retired into the bar, one of them returning with a glass upon a tray, and waiting to be paid, as Trimmer seized the liquor and gulped it down.“All right, my dear; my treat,” said the trainer, and the next minute the two men were alone.“Then it’s true?” faltered the agent, as he set down the glass.“Yes, all true. Your guv’nor’s going to ride La Sylphide, and a hundred to one he wins.”“And you never told me, an old friend,” said Trimmer, reproachfully.“No friendship in betting, sir. I stand to lose a pile over the job, and I must make a bit back. Did I ask you to put your money on Jim Crow?”“No—but—”“No, but!” said the trainer, scornfully. “Take it as I do. You don’t hear me ’owl.”Trimmer, who was as white as a sheet, sat panting, as he stared hard at the trainer, and then glanced up over his shoulder at the gallery.“C’rect card, gentlemen—all the runners, sir,” came from the outside to break the silence, backed up by the murmur from the course.“Sam,” whispered the agent at last, and he leant towards the trainer, “do you really stand to lose five thou’?”“Every penny of it,” growled the trainer, with a terrible oath, and a look which bespoke his sincerity. “What’s your twopenny bet to that? This is your somethinged guvnor’s doing. Confound him! I’d poison him if I could.”“Ha!” sighed Trimmer.“It was a dead certainty, as you know. They would have scratched La Sylphide at the last moment, for no one could ride her but Josh Rowle, and he’s in a strait weskit, with two nurses from the ’sylum. Dead certainty it was, when in comes your guv’nor to spoil as fine a thing as was ever planned.”“But he mayn’t win, after all.”“Tchah! I know the mare, don’t I? All he’s got to do is to sit still in the saddle, give her her head, and talk to her as he always knew how, and she’ll romp in past the lot. The game’s up, Mr Trimmer, and you must make the best of it. Here, don’t bear no malice. Have another drink, and take one of these.”“C’rect card, gents; all the runners!” came again from the outside.Simpkins’s outer breast-pocket formed his cigar-case, and he took out a couple from where they lay loose, and offered them to the agent. But the latter paid no heed, for he glanced up at the gallery and then at the bar, beyond which the two maids could be seen, busy serving.“Sam,” whispered Trimmer at last; “quick, before it’s too late. The mare must be got at.”Crack! went a match, and the trainer bit off the cigar end and lit up quickly.“Here, ketch hold,” he growled. “Be sharp, or it’ll be out,” and he offered the burning match. “You talk like a fool. How?”“You know. Such a little thing would do it. What about King Dick?”“Hold your cursed row,” growled the trainer, threateningly.“I can’t,” whispered the agent. “I’ve too much at stake. Get to the mare at once. You, a trainer, can manage that.”“You talk like a fool, I tell you. Close upon the time like this.”“Can’t you work it with the guv’nor or Lady T.?”“No. If I could should I be sitting here jawing? Tried it on, and failed.”“Think of your five thousand pounds.”“I tell you you can’t get at the mare.”“C’rect cards, gents,” came again from without, in Dandy Dinny’s raucous voice. But his cry was unheard within, where Trimmer, with a peculiar Mephistophelian smile upon his face, gave another glance upwards at the gallery, before leaning forward till his lips were quite close to the trainer’s great red ear, into which he whispered—“No, of course not; but you could get at the man.”The trainer started to his feet, the cigar he had just lit falling from his gaping mouth, just as Dandy Dinny passed the window, leering in, and then hurried out of sight with his hawking cry, for there was the sound of carriage wheels approaching the hotel.Trimmer rose too, and laid his hand softly upon Simpkinss arm, as he gazed hard in his companion’s rolling eyes, now directed towards the gallery.“Eh?” said the trainer at last, as his eyes dropped to gaze in those that were searching his, and he began to pass his big hand over his mouth again and again.Then he lowered it, still gazing hard at the agent, and lifted it once more to his lips, but now closed as if it were holding a drinking vessel, which he made believe to hold to his lips and drink therefrom.The look had now become questioning.A slowly given nod from Trimmer’s head was the answer.The big door-bell was pulled sharply, and gave forth a peal which made the trainer start. “Someone coming,” he said, rushing to the window and thrusting out his head, to draw it back sharply.“The missus!” he whispered.“Lady Lisle!” gasped Trimmer, excitedly. “She mustn’t see me here.”“Come in my office. Quick!”Simpkins half-thrust his companion quickly through the door in the corner, just as the boots passed through the porch and the barmaid came to her door, and the next minute Lady Lisle was ushered by the boots into the hall.“I’ll tell master, my lady,” said the man, and he went to the office, while the barmaid drew back into her highly-glazed shell.
What the trainer did was to return to the bar and swallow a glass of gin and bitters hastily, before returning to his favourite seat in the hall, when he pulled out betting-book and pencil, threw one swollen leg over the other, and began to chew the lead and try to master the figures which would not stand still to be reckoned up.
“Nice day for the races,” said a voice, as the door was darkened. “How are you, Simpkins?”
The trainer looked up angrily, saw that it was an old client and friend, and replied surlily: “Morn’n. They’ll attend to you in the bar. Oh, dear!” he muttered, “I can’t hedge now.”
The visitor glanced quickly round to see that they were alone, and then pressed up close to the trainer. “Pst! Look here, Sam Simpkins.”
“Didn’t I tell you they’d see to you in the bar?” growled the trainer.
“Yes; but I want another fifty on Jim Crow, if you can do it.”
“Eh? Yes, of course,” cried the trainer, completely changing his tone and manner; then, turning over a few leaves, he clumsily made an entry in his book.
“Close on the run,” he said apologetically.—“Horrid busy. There you are. Ten fives. All right, Mr Trimmer.”
“Not in my way, as a rule, Mr Simpkins,” said Lady Lisle’s agent, with a weak grin; “but a little flutter, as you call it, is pleasant and exciting—a nice change from the humdrum of business life.”
“And very profitable too, eh, Mr Trimmer?”
“Yes; I’ve not done badly, Sam—thanks to you, old friend.”
“No, you haven’t; but go and get your glass and be off, please,” said the trainer, finishing the deposit of the crisp new banknotes by placing them in a pocket-book, drawing on the tight elastic with a loud snap, buttoning the book up in his breast, and giving the place a slap, which seemed to bring out a sigh of relief.
“I won’t drink this morning, thank you, Sam. I’ll go out on the common at once. How does Jim Crow look?”
“Splendid; but be off, please. I’m busy,” growled the trainer.
“I understand. I shall find you here after the race. Short settlements, eh?”
“Always on spot. Take and give sharp; that’s my motter,” replied the trainer, bending down over his betting-book again without paying further heed to his client, who nodded, smiled at the chamber maid in the gallery, and went out softly.
“A bit back,” muttered the trainer, with the ghost of a grin on his stubbly face, as soon as he was alone. “But like nothing—like nothing,” he grumbled. “One drop in a pint pot. But let’s see; let’s see.”
He had not been immersed in his calculations again five minutes when there was a hurried step, and Lady Lisle’s agent came in, looking ghastly.
“Oh, there you are, Sam,” he said, hurriedly. “I’ve been on the common and I’ve changed my mind.”
“Eh? What?” said the trainer, looking up fiercely.
“That fifty I put on Jim Crow. I’ll put on La Sylphide instead.”
“Too late, sir. Bet booked. I never alter my entries. What’s the matter?”
“I thought Jim Crow was such a perfectly safe horse, but I hear—”
A gasp stopped the man’s utterance. “Well, what have you heered?”
“That—that Lady Tilborough’s horse is going to run after all.”
“Lady Tilborough’s mare’s scratched, they say, Mr Trimmer.”
“No, no. I have it on the best authority. She’s going to run.”
“Oh, they say anything in the ring. Don’t you take no notice. You’ve put your money on a good horse, and you’ve got to chance it, of course. I’ve a big pot on there.”
“So I hear, Mr Simpkins,” said the agent; “but I’m a poor man. I only bet on sure things, and I must withdraw this bet.”
“Too late, sir; can’t be done now.”
“But it must; it must I will have it back,” cried the agent, fiercely.
“Here, none of that,” said the trainer, with a savage growl. “You come to me, sir—made your bet, and I’ve booked it.”
“But I stand to lose five hundred pounds, man,” cried the agent, frantically. “Give me my money back.”
“Not a cent, sir. Chance it.”
“I heard that Josh Rowle was too bad to ride.”
“That’s true enough, sir.”
“I—I don’t understand,” cried Trimmer; “but I will not stir from here without those notes. Give me my fifty pounds.”
He caught the trainer with both hands by the coat. “Steady, my lad,” growled Simpkins. “Don’t be a fool. This is ’sault and battery, and, if I liked, I could lay you down with an ugly rap between the eyes. Steady!” he continued, with a grim smile overspreading his coarse and brutal face. “I begin to see now how it is. My, how queer! Your guv’nor must be going to ride.”
“What! Nonsense! Something to turn me off the scent. I will have my money back.”
“You won’t, Master Trimmer—not a cent; and look here, if you make that row you’ll have Sir Hilton out here to know what’s the matter.”
“Sir Hilton?” cried the man, staring wildly.
“Yes; he’s up there in number one, dressing for the race.”
“A lie! An excuse! Give me my money!” and he clutched at the trainer so fiercely that the bar and chamber maids came to the bar door to see.
“Ony a gent a bit upset about a bit o’ coin, my dears. Here, Mary, tell Mr Trimmer, here, who’s dressing in number one.”
“Sir Hilton Lisle, sir,” replied the maid, and Trimmer’s hands dropped from the trainer’s coat. “Anyone with him, my gal?”
“Yes, sir. Mark Willows, Sir Hilton’s groom.”
The agent dropped into a chair, looking as if he were going to have a fit.
“Gent’s a bit poorly. Excitement. That’ll do, my gals. Stop, one of you bring him a nip of my gin and bitters.”
The two maids, well accustomed to such scenes, retired into the bar, one of them returning with a glass upon a tray, and waiting to be paid, as Trimmer seized the liquor and gulped it down.
“All right, my dear; my treat,” said the trainer, and the next minute the two men were alone.
“Then it’s true?” faltered the agent, as he set down the glass.
“Yes, all true. Your guv’nor’s going to ride La Sylphide, and a hundred to one he wins.”
“And you never told me, an old friend,” said Trimmer, reproachfully.
“No friendship in betting, sir. I stand to lose a pile over the job, and I must make a bit back. Did I ask you to put your money on Jim Crow?”
“No—but—”
“No, but!” said the trainer, scornfully. “Take it as I do. You don’t hear me ’owl.”
Trimmer, who was as white as a sheet, sat panting, as he stared hard at the trainer, and then glanced up over his shoulder at the gallery.
“C’rect card, gentlemen—all the runners, sir,” came from the outside to break the silence, backed up by the murmur from the course.
“Sam,” whispered the agent at last, and he leant towards the trainer, “do you really stand to lose five thou’?”
“Every penny of it,” growled the trainer, with a terrible oath, and a look which bespoke his sincerity. “What’s your twopenny bet to that? This is your somethinged guvnor’s doing. Confound him! I’d poison him if I could.”
“Ha!” sighed Trimmer.
“It was a dead certainty, as you know. They would have scratched La Sylphide at the last moment, for no one could ride her but Josh Rowle, and he’s in a strait weskit, with two nurses from the ’sylum. Dead certainty it was, when in comes your guv’nor to spoil as fine a thing as was ever planned.”
“But he mayn’t win, after all.”
“Tchah! I know the mare, don’t I? All he’s got to do is to sit still in the saddle, give her her head, and talk to her as he always knew how, and she’ll romp in past the lot. The game’s up, Mr Trimmer, and you must make the best of it. Here, don’t bear no malice. Have another drink, and take one of these.”
“C’rect card, gents; all the runners!” came again from the outside.
Simpkins’s outer breast-pocket formed his cigar-case, and he took out a couple from where they lay loose, and offered them to the agent. But the latter paid no heed, for he glanced up at the gallery and then at the bar, beyond which the two maids could be seen, busy serving.
“Sam,” whispered Trimmer at last; “quick, before it’s too late. The mare must be got at.”
Crack! went a match, and the trainer bit off the cigar end and lit up quickly.
“Here, ketch hold,” he growled. “Be sharp, or it’ll be out,” and he offered the burning match. “You talk like a fool. How?”
“You know. Such a little thing would do it. What about King Dick?”
“Hold your cursed row,” growled the trainer, threateningly.
“I can’t,” whispered the agent. “I’ve too much at stake. Get to the mare at once. You, a trainer, can manage that.”
“You talk like a fool, I tell you. Close upon the time like this.”
“Can’t you work it with the guv’nor or Lady T.?”
“No. If I could should I be sitting here jawing? Tried it on, and failed.”
“Think of your five thousand pounds.”
“I tell you you can’t get at the mare.”
“C’rect cards, gents,” came again from without, in Dandy Dinny’s raucous voice. But his cry was unheard within, where Trimmer, with a peculiar Mephistophelian smile upon his face, gave another glance upwards at the gallery, before leaning forward till his lips were quite close to the trainer’s great red ear, into which he whispered—
“No, of course not; but you could get at the man.”
The trainer started to his feet, the cigar he had just lit falling from his gaping mouth, just as Dandy Dinny passed the window, leering in, and then hurried out of sight with his hawking cry, for there was the sound of carriage wheels approaching the hotel.
Trimmer rose too, and laid his hand softly upon Simpkinss arm, as he gazed hard in his companion’s rolling eyes, now directed towards the gallery.
“Eh?” said the trainer at last, as his eyes dropped to gaze in those that were searching his, and he began to pass his big hand over his mouth again and again.
Then he lowered it, still gazing hard at the agent, and lifted it once more to his lips, but now closed as if it were holding a drinking vessel, which he made believe to hold to his lips and drink therefrom.
The look had now become questioning.
A slowly given nod from Trimmer’s head was the answer.
The big door-bell was pulled sharply, and gave forth a peal which made the trainer start. “Someone coming,” he said, rushing to the window and thrusting out his head, to draw it back sharply.
“The missus!” he whispered.
“Lady Lisle!” gasped Trimmer, excitedly. “She mustn’t see me here.”
“Come in my office. Quick!”
Simpkins half-thrust his companion quickly through the door in the corner, just as the boots passed through the porch and the barmaid came to her door, and the next minute Lady Lisle was ushered by the boots into the hall.
“I’ll tell master, my lady,” said the man, and he went to the office, while the barmaid drew back into her highly-glazed shell.
Chapter Sixteen.Rather Equivocal.Lady Lisle gave an angry, shuddering look of disgust as she glanced round the sanctuary of the high priest of sport, noting the pictures and hunting trophies, and then holding her highly-scented handkerchief to her delicate nostrils, which were sharply assailed by spirituous exhalations and the fumes of the noxious weed.“Oh,” she mused, “that it should come to this—a publican’s daughter, a low-bred wench. Oh, Hilton, Hilton! But—ah! I am determined. I will see it to the end.”She was kept waiting quite five minutes, which she passed standing like a statue in the middle of the hall, till there was a husky cough, and Simpkins came hurrying out, trying with fat, clumsy fingers to thrust a little white, folded paper, very suggestive of “the powder at night” into his waistcoat pocket, where it refused at first to go.“Beg pardon, my lady,” he said, after a quick glance up at the gallery. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Very busy to-day.”“Mr Simpkins?” said the lady, haughtily.“That’s me, my lady; but if you want accommodation I’m afraid we’re full.”“My husband—Sir Hilton Lisle. He is here?” said the lady, sternly.The trainer’s jaw dropped, and, like lightning, a thought flashed through his brain.The wife, to stop the gentleman from mounting the mare! It was salvation.But the next moment the hope died out. In such an emergency the wife’s appeal would be as so much breath. It would be like grasping at a shadow and letting the substance go.“Do you not understand, my man?” said Lady Lisle, impatiently. “My husband—he is here?”“Sir Hilton Lisle, Bart.?” said the trainer, who determined to stick to the substance and let the shadow glide. “Oh, no, my lady, he ain’t here.”“Where is he, then?”“I dunno, my lady,” replied the man, coolly. “At the races, I should suppose.”“How could I find him in all that crowd?” murmured the unhappy woman. Then, setting her teeth hard to suppress the feeling of passion that was growing fast, she turned to the man again, and her voice was perfectly firm and cold, as she said authoritatively: “You have a daughter, man?”“That’s right, my lady,” said the trainer, and he smiled faintly. “Oh,” he continued, “I suppose I know what brings your ladyship here.”And once more a thought crossed his mind as to the possibility of stopping Sir Hilton’s jockeyship by setting his wife upon his track. But he dismissed it directly, to respond to his visitor’s command.“I suppose you do, sir,” she said haughtily. “Send the woman here.”“Woman, eh? Why, she’s a mere gal, my lady.”“Don’t speak to me like that, man,” cried Lady Lisle. “Where is your daughter?”“On the grand stand, I s’pose, along o’ him.”“This is monstrous!” cried Lady Lisle, passionately. “Oh, man, can you stand there with that base effrontery and speak to me like this?”“Can I, my lady? Yes. Why not? I’m not your paid servant, and I dessay if we totted up together and compared notes, I, Sam Simpkins, trainer, could show as good a hincome as your ladyship. At least, I could yesterday,” he muttered.“Yes, yes, no doubt; but have you no sense of the moral wrong? Are you shameless, or ignorant of your responsibility to your child?”“Well, you’re a-pitching it pretty strong, my lady; but I won’t kick, for I dessay you do find it rather a bitter pill to swallow.”“Man, you are shameless!” cried Lady Lisle, and the trainer chuckled.“Well, my lady, I’m not troubled much with that sort o’ thing. Bashfulness is a bit in the way in my trade.”“I’ll set it down to ignorance, then.”“That’s better, my lady. I never set up as a scholar.”“Let me appeal to you, then. Have you done nothing to stop it?”“Never knowed a word about it till this blessed morning, my lady,” cried the trainer, with a display of indignation. “Saucy young baggage! She kep’ it dark enough.”“Ha! Then you have some feeling for your child.”“Feeling, my lady! Course I have; and I’d ha’ stopped it if I’d known before it was too late.”Lady Lisle winced as if she had received a blow. “But, now—now,” she cried, “you will immediately take proceedings?”“Bah! What can I do?”“Oh, think, man, of the wrong it is doing me.”“Tchah! It’s of no use to talk now, my lady. Pride’s a very nice thing in its way, but they say it must have a fall. Love and natur’, my lady, gets the better of us all. You and me understands what it is, and you see now that you couldn’t always have him tied to your apron-string.”“Man, have you no feeling?”“Quite enough for my business, my lady.”“But I insist you shall stop it at once.”“Don’t I tell you, my lady,” cried the trainer, with a glance up at number one, “that it’s too late? She’ll be having him hear her directly,” he added to himself. “There, chuck it up, my lady,” he continued, “and go home. This place on a race day ain’t sootable for you. Take my word, you’ll soon get used to it.”“The man is a monster,” groaned Lady Lisle, wringing her hands. “Man, man,” she cried, “you shock me. If you have no feeling or respect for your child—”“Me, my lady? Of course, I have. Why,” added the trainer, “I like it.”“Wretched man! Such depravity!”“Depravity be blowed, my lady! Here, I can put up with a good deal, but you’re pitching it too strong. Come, I won’t get in a temper with you, my lady, though I am horribly tried just now. Come, I’m speaking fair as a man can speak; hadn’t you better climb down?”“Think of the scandal, man.”“My name’s Simpkins, my lady, please. If your set may call it a scandal, mine won’t mind. As for me, I think it’s a very good thing for the girl.”“I can bear no more of this,” muttered Lady Lisle, faintly. “It is too much. Oh! man, man, I looked for help and sympathy from you; but in your shameless ignorance you have done nothing but outrage my feelings.”“Very sorry, my lady; but you should have come and met me civil-like, as the father of as pretty a lass as ever stepped. ’Stead o’ which you comes in your carriage and walks in on stilts, and begins a-bully-ragging me as if I was still Sir Hilton’s servant. Now, look here, my lady, you’ve kep’ on calling me man, man, man, and it’s true I am a man, and a man with a temper; but I don’t like to be reminded of it over and over again, and in my own house, because them two began making love, as is the nat’ralest thing in natur’.”Lady Lisle felt exhausted, and she made a gesture as if to speak.“No, you’ve had your innings, my lady, and I don’t keep calling you woman, woman, woman. Now, here’s what I’ve got to say as a fine-ale—the thing’s happened, and you’ve got to make the best of it. My Molly’s out yonder with the chap she loves and who loves her. You can’t get at ’em, and if you behave sensible you’ll get back in your carriage and go straight home, and the sooner the better, or I shall have to show you the door, for I’ve got something in the way of a big business to do. By and by, when you get cool, you’ll see as it’s no use to be orty, and if you like to come down off the stilts and ask my Molly to join you at the Denes, well and good.”“Oh!” gasped the visitor in horror.“Very well, if you don’t I shan’t fret. I know what you’ve done long enough, keeping him like at the Denes; but I can afford it, even if I am hard hit to-day. It only means putting an extra knife and fork at my table, where he shall be welcome till you drop the orty and ’old your ’and—Hullo! Feel upset, my lady? That’s pride and temper.”“Don’t touch me, man!” panted the suffering woman; “it would be pollution. Oh, Hilton, Hilton!” she moaned as she strove to steady herself to the door and managed to walk out of the porch and step feebly into the carriage.“Home!” she said, in a deep, hollow voice before she sank back, unconscious of the excitement and noise around, and moaned softly. “Home? No; it is home no more.”This giving way to one set of feelings lasted but a few moments, for there rose up before her imagination the figure of her husband seated somewhere with her young and handsome rival, possibly hand in hand, watching the scene before them, and a wave of fierce passion swept all before it. The next minute, to the astonishment and satisfaction of her disappointed coachman, who was longing to see one heat if not more, she stood up in the barouche and prodded him with her parasol.“Turn back,” she said, “and drive to where I can have a good view of the race.”
Lady Lisle gave an angry, shuddering look of disgust as she glanced round the sanctuary of the high priest of sport, noting the pictures and hunting trophies, and then holding her highly-scented handkerchief to her delicate nostrils, which were sharply assailed by spirituous exhalations and the fumes of the noxious weed.
“Oh,” she mused, “that it should come to this—a publican’s daughter, a low-bred wench. Oh, Hilton, Hilton! But—ah! I am determined. I will see it to the end.”
She was kept waiting quite five minutes, which she passed standing like a statue in the middle of the hall, till there was a husky cough, and Simpkins came hurrying out, trying with fat, clumsy fingers to thrust a little white, folded paper, very suggestive of “the powder at night” into his waistcoat pocket, where it refused at first to go.
“Beg pardon, my lady,” he said, after a quick glance up at the gallery. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Very busy to-day.”
“Mr Simpkins?” said the lady, haughtily.
“That’s me, my lady; but if you want accommodation I’m afraid we’re full.”
“My husband—Sir Hilton Lisle. He is here?” said the lady, sternly.
The trainer’s jaw dropped, and, like lightning, a thought flashed through his brain.
The wife, to stop the gentleman from mounting the mare! It was salvation.
But the next moment the hope died out. In such an emergency the wife’s appeal would be as so much breath. It would be like grasping at a shadow and letting the substance go.
“Do you not understand, my man?” said Lady Lisle, impatiently. “My husband—he is here?”
“Sir Hilton Lisle, Bart.?” said the trainer, who determined to stick to the substance and let the shadow glide. “Oh, no, my lady, he ain’t here.”
“Where is he, then?”
“I dunno, my lady,” replied the man, coolly. “At the races, I should suppose.”
“How could I find him in all that crowd?” murmured the unhappy woman. Then, setting her teeth hard to suppress the feeling of passion that was growing fast, she turned to the man again, and her voice was perfectly firm and cold, as she said authoritatively: “You have a daughter, man?”
“That’s right, my lady,” said the trainer, and he smiled faintly. “Oh,” he continued, “I suppose I know what brings your ladyship here.”
And once more a thought crossed his mind as to the possibility of stopping Sir Hilton’s jockeyship by setting his wife upon his track. But he dismissed it directly, to respond to his visitor’s command.
“I suppose you do, sir,” she said haughtily. “Send the woman here.”
“Woman, eh? Why, she’s a mere gal, my lady.”
“Don’t speak to me like that, man,” cried Lady Lisle. “Where is your daughter?”
“On the grand stand, I s’pose, along o’ him.”
“This is monstrous!” cried Lady Lisle, passionately. “Oh, man, can you stand there with that base effrontery and speak to me like this?”
“Can I, my lady? Yes. Why not? I’m not your paid servant, and I dessay if we totted up together and compared notes, I, Sam Simpkins, trainer, could show as good a hincome as your ladyship. At least, I could yesterday,” he muttered.
“Yes, yes, no doubt; but have you no sense of the moral wrong? Are you shameless, or ignorant of your responsibility to your child?”
“Well, you’re a-pitching it pretty strong, my lady; but I won’t kick, for I dessay you do find it rather a bitter pill to swallow.”
“Man, you are shameless!” cried Lady Lisle, and the trainer chuckled.
“Well, my lady, I’m not troubled much with that sort o’ thing. Bashfulness is a bit in the way in my trade.”
“I’ll set it down to ignorance, then.”
“That’s better, my lady. I never set up as a scholar.”
“Let me appeal to you, then. Have you done nothing to stop it?”
“Never knowed a word about it till this blessed morning, my lady,” cried the trainer, with a display of indignation. “Saucy young baggage! She kep’ it dark enough.”
“Ha! Then you have some feeling for your child.”
“Feeling, my lady! Course I have; and I’d ha’ stopped it if I’d known before it was too late.”
Lady Lisle winced as if she had received a blow. “But, now—now,” she cried, “you will immediately take proceedings?”
“Bah! What can I do?”
“Oh, think, man, of the wrong it is doing me.”
“Tchah! It’s of no use to talk now, my lady. Pride’s a very nice thing in its way, but they say it must have a fall. Love and natur’, my lady, gets the better of us all. You and me understands what it is, and you see now that you couldn’t always have him tied to your apron-string.”
“Man, have you no feeling?”
“Quite enough for my business, my lady.”
“But I insist you shall stop it at once.”
“Don’t I tell you, my lady,” cried the trainer, with a glance up at number one, “that it’s too late? She’ll be having him hear her directly,” he added to himself. “There, chuck it up, my lady,” he continued, “and go home. This place on a race day ain’t sootable for you. Take my word, you’ll soon get used to it.”
“The man is a monster,” groaned Lady Lisle, wringing her hands. “Man, man,” she cried, “you shock me. If you have no feeling or respect for your child—”
“Me, my lady? Of course, I have. Why,” added the trainer, “I like it.”
“Wretched man! Such depravity!”
“Depravity be blowed, my lady! Here, I can put up with a good deal, but you’re pitching it too strong. Come, I won’t get in a temper with you, my lady, though I am horribly tried just now. Come, I’m speaking fair as a man can speak; hadn’t you better climb down?”
“Think of the scandal, man.”
“My name’s Simpkins, my lady, please. If your set may call it a scandal, mine won’t mind. As for me, I think it’s a very good thing for the girl.”
“I can bear no more of this,” muttered Lady Lisle, faintly. “It is too much. Oh! man, man, I looked for help and sympathy from you; but in your shameless ignorance you have done nothing but outrage my feelings.”
“Very sorry, my lady; but you should have come and met me civil-like, as the father of as pretty a lass as ever stepped. ’Stead o’ which you comes in your carriage and walks in on stilts, and begins a-bully-ragging me as if I was still Sir Hilton’s servant. Now, look here, my lady, you’ve kep’ on calling me man, man, man, and it’s true I am a man, and a man with a temper; but I don’t like to be reminded of it over and over again, and in my own house, because them two began making love, as is the nat’ralest thing in natur’.”
Lady Lisle felt exhausted, and she made a gesture as if to speak.
“No, you’ve had your innings, my lady, and I don’t keep calling you woman, woman, woman. Now, here’s what I’ve got to say as a fine-ale—the thing’s happened, and you’ve got to make the best of it. My Molly’s out yonder with the chap she loves and who loves her. You can’t get at ’em, and if you behave sensible you’ll get back in your carriage and go straight home, and the sooner the better, or I shall have to show you the door, for I’ve got something in the way of a big business to do. By and by, when you get cool, you’ll see as it’s no use to be orty, and if you like to come down off the stilts and ask my Molly to join you at the Denes, well and good.”
“Oh!” gasped the visitor in horror.
“Very well, if you don’t I shan’t fret. I know what you’ve done long enough, keeping him like at the Denes; but I can afford it, even if I am hard hit to-day. It only means putting an extra knife and fork at my table, where he shall be welcome till you drop the orty and ’old your ’and—Hullo! Feel upset, my lady? That’s pride and temper.”
“Don’t touch me, man!” panted the suffering woman; “it would be pollution. Oh, Hilton, Hilton!” she moaned as she strove to steady herself to the door and managed to walk out of the porch and step feebly into the carriage.
“Home!” she said, in a deep, hollow voice before she sank back, unconscious of the excitement and noise around, and moaned softly. “Home? No; it is home no more.”
This giving way to one set of feelings lasted but a few moments, for there rose up before her imagination the figure of her husband seated somewhere with her young and handsome rival, possibly hand in hand, watching the scene before them, and a wave of fierce passion swept all before it. The next minute, to the astonishment and satisfaction of her disappointed coachman, who was longing to see one heat if not more, she stood up in the barouche and prodded him with her parasol.
“Turn back,” she said, “and drive to where I can have a good view of the race.”
Chapter Seventeen.La Sylphide’s Health.“Orty, stuck-up popinjay!” growled the trainer, mopping his forehead. “But she’s got to come down. And me on pins and needles all the time for fear he should open his door and she see him! I did feel as if it might be right to let her, but his monkey would have been up, and she couldn’t have stopped him from riding. Hullo!” he said, as he saw Trimmer at the office-door. “Not gone!”“No,” whispered the agent. “I felt obliged to stay.”“And I feel obliged to kick you out. So cut.”“No, no, Mr Simpkins.”“Look here, sir, if that job’s to be done, I can do it. I don’t want no complications. You can stand by me if it gets blown and there’s a job for the police. As it is, I’ll do it or not do it, without your meddling and putting in your spoon. Take your hook, dyer hear, and before he comes.”At that very moment there was the rattle of a door handle in the gallery, and a familiar voice exclaimed: “One moment, Sir Hilton, you’ve left your whip.”“Give it me; but she’ll want no whip.”The trainer made a fierce gesture, and the agent retreated through the office, while the former thrust his fat finger and thumb into his waistcoat pocket unconsciously as he advanced towards the foot of the stairs, down which Sir Hilton came carefully, so as not to catch his spurs in the carpet, and closely followed by Mark Willows, bearing a long drab greatcoat. The baronet looked the very pink of a gentleman-rider in his light-blue satin shirt, diagonally crossed over the right shoulder by a broad scarlet scarf-like band, and scarlet jockey cap to match. His breeches and boots fitted to perfection, and as he stepped lightly into the middle of the hall, almost on the very spot which his wife had occupied, there was a keen look in his grey eyes and a slight quivering about his well-cut nostrils, making him seem alert, ready, and quite the man who might be trusted with a race.“There,” he said sharply; “how long have I to spare?”“Good half-hour, sir,” said the trainer, gazing at his guest as if full of pride at his appearance.“Leave that coat on the chair, there, man, and go and wait for me at the paddock.”Mark touched his hat and passed out, eager to get on to the field of battle, swarming with objects of interest to the groom’s eyes, while Simpkins approached his guest, smiling and rubbing his hands.“Well, Sam,” said Sir Hilton, shortly; “do I look all right?”“All right, Sir Hilton? Splendid!”The eager admiration seemed to be perfectly real, as the trainer walked round, inspecting carefully.“Not your old things, are they, Sir Hilton?”“Oh, yes. Been lying by these three years. Look—creased and soiled?”“Fresh as a daisy, Sir Hilton. Why, its like old times. Here, hang the business! It may take care of itself to-day. I’m coming to see you ride.”The man spoke back over his shoulder, as, leaving his guest shaking himself down in the unaccustomed garb, he hurried into the office, where a pop was heard, and he returned, bearing a waiter, on which was a foaming champagne bottle and a couple of glasses.This he placed upon a little marble table, and began to fill the glasses with trembling hands, a little in first one and then in the other, till the cream ceased to threaten flowing over, when he placed the bottle by itself and bore the waiter and its glasses towards the guest. “Hullo! What have you got there, Sam?”“Irroy, black seal, Sir Hilton.”“I see; but I didn’t order it.”“No, Sir Hilton, but you won’t mind taking a glass with the old trainer—to La Sylphide, and the winning of the cup?”“No, no, no, man. Nonsense! Very good of you, but I want a cool head and a steady hand.”“Of course you do, Sir Hilton; but one glass o’ dry fizz! Not much harm in that, Sir Hilton. You’ll do me the honour, sir, just for luck? Tighten up your nerves, and make you win in a canter.”“Do you want me to win, Sam?” said Sir Hilton, sharply.“Win, Sir Hilton? Of course. I thought I was going to lose heavily, but I’ve put it right, and it means a couple of hundred if you sail in first.”“And if I lose?”“I shall be just about even, Sir Hilton,” said the man, with a grin, as he held out the tray.“Well,” said Sir Hilton, whose cheeks were flushed with excitement, “I shall win, Sam.”He took up the clear, foaming glass, from up whose centre the tiny beads were rising fast, like a fountain, to break and add to the sparkling foam. “Here’s La Sylphide, Sam.”“Here’s La Sylphide, Sir Hilton,” cried the trainer, “and thanking my old master for the honour done to his old trainer Simpkins, chrissen Sam.”As he spoke he fixed his eyes full upon those of the gaily-dressed jockey facing him, and, taking his time from his guest, raised the glass to his lips and kept it there till it was drained, before holding out the salver for Sir Hilton’s empty glass.“Bah! Too dry,” said Sir Hilton, with a slight grimace. “How long have you had that wine?”“’Bout seven year, Sir Hilton,” replied the man, setting down the waiter and replacing the bottle by the glasses, but so clumsily that he knocked over his guest’s glass, which was shivered to atoms on the floor.“Oh, I beg pardon, Sir Hilton! I’m so excited with the race that my head’s all of a shake. Hi, somebody, a clean glass!”The barmaid ran out with the fresh glass, and she was followed by one of the other maids with a dustpan and brush.“That’s right, my lass; be careful; don’t leave any bits.”As he spoke he lifted the little marble table out of the maid’s way and filled the glasses again, before raising the waiter to hand it for the second time to his guest.“No, no, Sam; one’s enough.”“What, Sir Hilton! You won’t wet the other eye?”“No, not even if I were not going to ride. That wine’s bad.”“Bad, Sir Hilton?” cried the trainer, raising his own glass to the light, sniffing at it, tasting it cautiously, and then looking again at his visitor. “Mouth must be a bit out o’ taste with the excitement. Seems to me—” He raised his glass to his lips again, took a good pull, and then drained and set it down. “Beg your pardon, Sir Hilton,” he said; “I don’t set up for a judge, but I wouldn’t wish to taste a better drop o’ cham than that.”“Glad you like it,” said Sir Hilton, tetchily.“Try it again, sir. Give your mouth a rinse out with it, and then finish the glass.”“No, thanks; that will do. Bah! I can taste it now,” said Sir Hilton, snappishly, and he smacked his lips, and then passed his tongue over them two or three times as he walked hastily up and down, tapping his boot with the gold-mounted whip he held.Simpkins watched him furtively and moved towards the bar, but turned, and seemed to force himself to his guest’s side. “Oh, yes, Sir Hilton,” he said, “you’ll win; and it’ll be, as I said afore, two ’underd in my pocket, while, if you lose, which you won’t, it’ll bring me within a fiver or so of home.”“Get away! Don’t bother,” said his victim, sharply.“Right, Sir Hilton. Course you’ve a deal on your head now, but, if you wouldn’t mind, I think I’ll have half a glass more of that wine before it gets flat.”“Bah!” ejaculated the baronet. “Thank ye, Sir Hilton,” said the man, refilling his glass, to stand watching his visitor while sipping slowly, and muttering every time he raised his trembling hand something about “good glass of wine.”Suddenly Sir Hilton made a quick turn and walked sharply towards the door, making the trainer set down his glass hurriedly, glance at the bar-window to see if he was observed, and then follow his guest to the door; but, before he reached it, the baronet turned round and walked back, close by the landlord, without appearing to notice him.“Can’t stand it no longer,” muttered the man to himself. “Hah! Wonder whether it will come off?”He glanced at his victim sharply, saw that he was talking softly to himself in the intervals of passing his tongue impatiently over his lips and making a peculiar sound as if tasting.“Tlat, tlat, tlat! Too dry. Burns and smarts,” he said impatiently, and then clapped his hand quickly to his head.“Why not try another glass, Sir Hilton?” said the trainer; but no heed was taken of his words.“It’s a-working,” muttered the man. “Hope I didn’t give him too much.”He glanced at the bright blue and scarlet figure again, and then, drawing a deep breath he once more moved towards the door of his office, where he stopped inside watching.“Why, it’s like giving him the jumps,” he muttered. “Well, if it do go wrong, I ain’t done nothing. It’s the drink. He must ha’ been having it heavy before he came here; and if that won’t do, I’m blest if I’m going to stand the racket all alone.”He stood watching his victim for quite ten minutes, during which time the drug he had administered, one of whose properties as a trainer and veterinary surgeon he was well aware, was working with wonderful rapidity; and this was accelerated suddenly by Sir Hilton’s action, for to the trainer’s great delight, the poor fellow gave a lurch which brought him near the little table, where he recovered himself, saw the bottle and glass, and seized the former with his left hand.“Dry—thirsty!” he said hurriedly; and making an effort he poured out another glass of wine, drained it, and was in the act of setting down the glass when Granton came hurrying in, and Simpkins drew back out of sight.
“Orty, stuck-up popinjay!” growled the trainer, mopping his forehead. “But she’s got to come down. And me on pins and needles all the time for fear he should open his door and she see him! I did feel as if it might be right to let her, but his monkey would have been up, and she couldn’t have stopped him from riding. Hullo!” he said, as he saw Trimmer at the office-door. “Not gone!”
“No,” whispered the agent. “I felt obliged to stay.”
“And I feel obliged to kick you out. So cut.”
“No, no, Mr Simpkins.”
“Look here, sir, if that job’s to be done, I can do it. I don’t want no complications. You can stand by me if it gets blown and there’s a job for the police. As it is, I’ll do it or not do it, without your meddling and putting in your spoon. Take your hook, dyer hear, and before he comes.”
At that very moment there was the rattle of a door handle in the gallery, and a familiar voice exclaimed: “One moment, Sir Hilton, you’ve left your whip.”
“Give it me; but she’ll want no whip.”
The trainer made a fierce gesture, and the agent retreated through the office, while the former thrust his fat finger and thumb into his waistcoat pocket unconsciously as he advanced towards the foot of the stairs, down which Sir Hilton came carefully, so as not to catch his spurs in the carpet, and closely followed by Mark Willows, bearing a long drab greatcoat. The baronet looked the very pink of a gentleman-rider in his light-blue satin shirt, diagonally crossed over the right shoulder by a broad scarlet scarf-like band, and scarlet jockey cap to match. His breeches and boots fitted to perfection, and as he stepped lightly into the middle of the hall, almost on the very spot which his wife had occupied, there was a keen look in his grey eyes and a slight quivering about his well-cut nostrils, making him seem alert, ready, and quite the man who might be trusted with a race.
“There,” he said sharply; “how long have I to spare?”
“Good half-hour, sir,” said the trainer, gazing at his guest as if full of pride at his appearance.
“Leave that coat on the chair, there, man, and go and wait for me at the paddock.”
Mark touched his hat and passed out, eager to get on to the field of battle, swarming with objects of interest to the groom’s eyes, while Simpkins approached his guest, smiling and rubbing his hands.
“Well, Sam,” said Sir Hilton, shortly; “do I look all right?”
“All right, Sir Hilton? Splendid!”
The eager admiration seemed to be perfectly real, as the trainer walked round, inspecting carefully.
“Not your old things, are they, Sir Hilton?”
“Oh, yes. Been lying by these three years. Look—creased and soiled?”
“Fresh as a daisy, Sir Hilton. Why, its like old times. Here, hang the business! It may take care of itself to-day. I’m coming to see you ride.”
The man spoke back over his shoulder, as, leaving his guest shaking himself down in the unaccustomed garb, he hurried into the office, where a pop was heard, and he returned, bearing a waiter, on which was a foaming champagne bottle and a couple of glasses.
This he placed upon a little marble table, and began to fill the glasses with trembling hands, a little in first one and then in the other, till the cream ceased to threaten flowing over, when he placed the bottle by itself and bore the waiter and its glasses towards the guest. “Hullo! What have you got there, Sam?”
“Irroy, black seal, Sir Hilton.”
“I see; but I didn’t order it.”
“No, Sir Hilton, but you won’t mind taking a glass with the old trainer—to La Sylphide, and the winning of the cup?”
“No, no, no, man. Nonsense! Very good of you, but I want a cool head and a steady hand.”
“Of course you do, Sir Hilton; but one glass o’ dry fizz! Not much harm in that, Sir Hilton. You’ll do me the honour, sir, just for luck? Tighten up your nerves, and make you win in a canter.”
“Do you want me to win, Sam?” said Sir Hilton, sharply.
“Win, Sir Hilton? Of course. I thought I was going to lose heavily, but I’ve put it right, and it means a couple of hundred if you sail in first.”
“And if I lose?”
“I shall be just about even, Sir Hilton,” said the man, with a grin, as he held out the tray.
“Well,” said Sir Hilton, whose cheeks were flushed with excitement, “I shall win, Sam.”
He took up the clear, foaming glass, from up whose centre the tiny beads were rising fast, like a fountain, to break and add to the sparkling foam. “Here’s La Sylphide, Sam.”
“Here’s La Sylphide, Sir Hilton,” cried the trainer, “and thanking my old master for the honour done to his old trainer Simpkins, chrissen Sam.”
As he spoke he fixed his eyes full upon those of the gaily-dressed jockey facing him, and, taking his time from his guest, raised the glass to his lips and kept it there till it was drained, before holding out the salver for Sir Hilton’s empty glass.
“Bah! Too dry,” said Sir Hilton, with a slight grimace. “How long have you had that wine?”
“’Bout seven year, Sir Hilton,” replied the man, setting down the waiter and replacing the bottle by the glasses, but so clumsily that he knocked over his guest’s glass, which was shivered to atoms on the floor.
“Oh, I beg pardon, Sir Hilton! I’m so excited with the race that my head’s all of a shake. Hi, somebody, a clean glass!”
The barmaid ran out with the fresh glass, and she was followed by one of the other maids with a dustpan and brush.
“That’s right, my lass; be careful; don’t leave any bits.”
As he spoke he lifted the little marble table out of the maid’s way and filled the glasses again, before raising the waiter to hand it for the second time to his guest.
“No, no, Sam; one’s enough.”
“What, Sir Hilton! You won’t wet the other eye?”
“No, not even if I were not going to ride. That wine’s bad.”
“Bad, Sir Hilton?” cried the trainer, raising his own glass to the light, sniffing at it, tasting it cautiously, and then looking again at his visitor. “Mouth must be a bit out o’ taste with the excitement. Seems to me—” He raised his glass to his lips again, took a good pull, and then drained and set it down. “Beg your pardon, Sir Hilton,” he said; “I don’t set up for a judge, but I wouldn’t wish to taste a better drop o’ cham than that.”
“Glad you like it,” said Sir Hilton, tetchily.
“Try it again, sir. Give your mouth a rinse out with it, and then finish the glass.”
“No, thanks; that will do. Bah! I can taste it now,” said Sir Hilton, snappishly, and he smacked his lips, and then passed his tongue over them two or three times as he walked hastily up and down, tapping his boot with the gold-mounted whip he held.
Simpkins watched him furtively and moved towards the bar, but turned, and seemed to force himself to his guest’s side. “Oh, yes, Sir Hilton,” he said, “you’ll win; and it’ll be, as I said afore, two ’underd in my pocket, while, if you lose, which you won’t, it’ll bring me within a fiver or so of home.”
“Get away! Don’t bother,” said his victim, sharply.
“Right, Sir Hilton. Course you’ve a deal on your head now, but, if you wouldn’t mind, I think I’ll have half a glass more of that wine before it gets flat.”
“Bah!” ejaculated the baronet. “Thank ye, Sir Hilton,” said the man, refilling his glass, to stand watching his visitor while sipping slowly, and muttering every time he raised his trembling hand something about “good glass of wine.”
Suddenly Sir Hilton made a quick turn and walked sharply towards the door, making the trainer set down his glass hurriedly, glance at the bar-window to see if he was observed, and then follow his guest to the door; but, before he reached it, the baronet turned round and walked back, close by the landlord, without appearing to notice him.
“Can’t stand it no longer,” muttered the man to himself. “Hah! Wonder whether it will come off?”
He glanced at his victim sharply, saw that he was talking softly to himself in the intervals of passing his tongue impatiently over his lips and making a peculiar sound as if tasting.
“Tlat, tlat, tlat! Too dry. Burns and smarts,” he said impatiently, and then clapped his hand quickly to his head.
“Why not try another glass, Sir Hilton?” said the trainer; but no heed was taken of his words.
“It’s a-working,” muttered the man. “Hope I didn’t give him too much.”
He glanced at the bright blue and scarlet figure again, and then, drawing a deep breath he once more moved towards the door of his office, where he stopped inside watching.
“Why, it’s like giving him the jumps,” he muttered. “Well, if it do go wrong, I ain’t done nothing. It’s the drink. He must ha’ been having it heavy before he came here; and if that won’t do, I’m blest if I’m going to stand the racket all alone.”
He stood watching his victim for quite ten minutes, during which time the drug he had administered, one of whose properties as a trainer and veterinary surgeon he was well aware, was working with wonderful rapidity; and this was accelerated suddenly by Sir Hilton’s action, for to the trainer’s great delight, the poor fellow gave a lurch which brought him near the little table, where he recovered himself, saw the bottle and glass, and seized the former with his left hand.
“Dry—thirsty!” he said hurriedly; and making an effort he poured out another glass of wine, drained it, and was in the act of setting down the glass when Granton came hurrying in, and Simpkins drew back out of sight.