"And the other day the papers were full of a man who came into tens of thousands through what they call a Derby sweep. I remember wondering how cleaning chimneys—even those long factory ones—could be so profitable in the north of England, until it turned out that a sweep was some kind of horse-race."
"The Derby, as it is called," said Mrs Polsue, imparting information in her turn, "is the most famous of horse-races, and the most popular, though not the most fashionable. It is called the Blue Ribbon of the Turf."
"Indeed? Now that's very gratifying to hear," said Miss Oliver.
"I didn't know they ran any of these meetings on teetotal lines."
"As I was saying," her friend continued, "the gowns worn are not so expensive as at Ascot, and I believe there is no Royal Enclosure. But the Derby is nevertheless what they call a National Institution. As you know, I disapprove of horse-racing as a pastime: but my brother-in-law in the Civil Service used to attend it regularly, from a sense of duty, with a green veil around his hat."
"I suppose he didn't want to be recognised?" Miss Oliver hazarded.
"He didn't go so far as to say that Government Officials were compelled to attend: though he implied that it was expected of him. There's an unwritten law in most of these matters. . . . But after what I've told you, Charity Oliver, do you look me in the face and suggest that the Derby horse-race—being run, as every one knows, early in the London season and somewhere towards the end of May, if my memory serves me—can be made to account for a man like Nanjivell, that humanly speaking shouldn't know one end of a horse from another, starting to parade his wealth in the month of August?"
"You've such a knack of taking me up before I'm down, Mary-Martha! I never said nor implied that Mr Nanjivell had won his money on a horse-race. I only said that some people did."
"Oh, well, if that's your piece of news," said Mrs Polsue with her finest satirical air, "it was considerate of you to put on your bonnet and lose no time in telling me. . . . But how long is it since we started 'Mister'-ing Nanjivell in this way?"
Miss Oliver's face grew crimson. "It seems to me that now he has come into money—and being always of good family, as everybody knows—" She hesitated and came to a halt. Her friend's eyes were fixed on her, and with an expression not unlike a lazy cat's.
"Oho!" thought Mrs Polsue to herself, and for just a moment her frame shook with a dry inward spasm; but not a muscle of her face twitched. Aloud she said: "Well, in your place I shouldn't be so hot, at short notice, to stand up for a man who on your own showing is a corrupter of children's minds. Knowing what I've told you of the relations between this Nanjivell and Mrs Penhaligon, and catching this Penhaligon child with a gold coin in his hand, and hearing from his own confession that the man gave it to him, even you might have drawn some conclusion, I'd have thought."