“Three.”
“Bah! what’s the good, I bid five,” said Muzada.
Jack Harman seemed to be doing a sum in mental arithmetic then, he shrugged his shoulders and walked away, letting Marmion’s chance be knocked down to Solomon Muzada.
“See, that is done to spite me; he’d do anything to prevent me winning any money, the brute! I’ll sell him though. If Mr Muzada thinks I keep horses in training to win money for him he makes a mistake,” Harman said, as he came up to me; then raising his voice he turned to Muzada, who was standing near: “Well, what do you expect to make by this? You’re pretty clever to buy a horse against an owner, but you’ll find if it wasn’t worth my while to pay for the horse’s chance it wasn’t worth yours.”
“Ah! this is the Captain who is such an honourable gentleman, and he says he will humbug me, and not let his horse win because I bought the lottery,” Muzada sneered; “but I tink the honourable Captain can’t afford to throw away the stakes, so that’s why I buy Marmion’s chance.”
“You think I can’t afford to lose the stakes—well, you will find out whether I can afford that; all I say is, that you sha’n’t win money by my horse.”
“Your horse! well, he won’t be your horse long, you will have to sell him after the race. You’re a nice man to own horses—a beggar like you; you will be sold up soon after the race is over. I will buy your horse then.”
“That depends on others as well as you, for the horse will be sold by public auction; but stop, since you have bought the horse’s lottery you had better buy him now at once, you shall have him with his engagements for fifteen hundred pounds, he is worth more to you than to any one else.”
Muzada looked eagerly at Harman as he made this suggestion. He had set his mind on buying Marmion after the race, and he thought he might as well buy him before. He could not quite understand why Jack was willing to sell to him. The price mentioned seemed not to be very much, considering that the horse was sure to win the race the next day; so some of the purchase money would come back.
“Don’t be a fool, the horse is worth more than that,” another owner of race-horses whispered to Jack.