I used pretty well all the bad language I knew in one blast. Biddy began to walk away, laughing till I felt as if I could kick him.
“I’m going to have a front seat for this trotting match,” he said, stopping to get his wind. “Spectators along the route requested to provide themselves with pitchforks and fireworks, I suppose, in case the champion pony should show any of his engaging little temper. Never mind, old man, I’ll see you through this, there’s no use in getting into a wax about it. I’m going shares with you, the way we always do.”
I can’t say I responded graciously, I rather think I cursed him and everything else in heaps. When he was gone I began to think of what could be done.
“Get out the dog-cart,” I said, as a last chance. “Perhaps he’ll go in harness.”
We wheeled the cart up to him, got him harnessed to it, and in two minutes that pony was walking, trotting, anything I wanted—can’t explain why—one of the mysteries of horseflesh. I drove him out through the Cashmere Gate, passing Biddy on the way, and feeling a good deal the better for it, and as soon as I got on to the flat stretch of road outside the gate I tried what the pony could do. He went even better than I thought he could, very rough and uneven, of course, but still promising. I brought him home, and had him put into training at once, as carefully as if he was going for the Derby. I chose the course, took the six-mile stretch of road from the Cashmere gate to Sufter Jung’s tomb, and drove him over it every day. It was a splendid course—level as a table, and dead straight for the most part—and after a few days he could do it in about forty minutes out and thirty-five back. People began to talk then, especially as the pony’s look and shape were improving each day, and after a little time every one was planking his money on one way or another—Biddy putting on a thousand on his own account—still, I’m bound to say the odds were against the pony. The whole of Delhi got into a state of excitement about it, natives and all, and every day I got letters warning me to take care, as there might be foul play. The stable the pony was in was a big one, and I had a wall built across it, and put a man with a gun in the outer compartment. I bought all his corn myself, in feeds at a time, going here, there, and everywhere for it, never to the same place for two days together—I thought it was better to be sure than sorry, and there’s no trusting a nigger.
The day of the match every soul in the place turned out, such crowds that I could scarcely get the dog-cart through when I drove to the Cashmere gate. I got down there, and was looking over the cart to see that everything was right, when a little half-caste keranie, a sort of low-class clerk, came up behind me and began talking to me in a mysterious kind of way, in that vile chi-chi accent one gets to hate so awfully.
“Look here, Sar,” he said, “you take my car, Sar; it built for racing. I do much trot-racing myself”—mentioning his name—“and you go much faster my car, Sar.”
I trusted nobody in those days, and thought a good deal of myself accordingly. I hadn’t found out that it takes a much smarter man to know how to trust a few.
“Thank you,” I said, “I think I’ll keep my own, the pony’s accustomed to it.”
I think he understood quite well what I felt, but he didn’t show any resentment.