Sylvia informed Clara that her father used to play cards for money in France.
“There you are. What did I tell you?” Clara went on. “Nap, they call it, but I reckon that there Monkley keeps wide enough awake. Oh, he’s an artful one, he is! Birds and feathers keep together, they say, and I reckon your dad’s cleverer than what he makes out to be.”
Sylvia produced in support of this idea her father’s habit of juggling with a penny.
“What did I tell you?” Clara exclaimed, triumphantly. “Take it from me, Sil, the two of them has a rare old time with this racing. I’ve got a friend, Maudie Tilt, who’s in service, and her brother started off to be a jockey, only he never got very far, because he got kicked on the head by a horse when he was sweeping out the stable, which was very aggravating for his relations, because he had a sister who died in a galloping consumption the same week. I reckon horses was very unlucky for them, I do.”
“My grandmother got run over coming back from my grandfather’s funeral,” Sylvia proclaimed.
“By the hearse?” Clara asked, awestruck.
Sylvia felt it would be well to make the most of her story, and replied without hesitation in the affirmative.
“Well, they say to meet an empty hearse means a pleasant surprise,” said Clara. “But I reckon your grandma didn’t think so. Here, I’ll tell you what, my next afternoon off I’ll take you round to see Maudie Tilt. She lives not far from where the Cedars ’bus stops.”
About a week after this conversation Clara, wearing balloon sleeves of last year’s fashion and with her hair banked up to support a monstrous hat, descended into the basement, whence she and Sylvia emerged into a fine April afternoon and hailed an omnibus.
“Mind you don’t get blown off the top, miss,” said the conductor, with a glance at Clara’s sleeves.