The Judge permitted himself to smile.
“In Newmarket,” he said, “our friend does very little more, I fear, than waste his time and money on the race-course. He has half a dozen horses—I had a letter from him this morning.”
He walked back to his table, searched in the litter, and presently amongst the papers pulled out a letter.
“As a matter of fact, I had some business with him and I wrote to him for information. The only thing he tells me is”—this with a gesture of despair—“that Skyball and Polly Chaw—those are the names of race-horses, I presume—will win the two big handicaps next week and that he has a flyer named Swift Kate that can beat anything—I am quoting his words—on legs over six furlongs.”
He looked up over his glasses at Timothy, and on that young man’s face was a seraphic smile.
“Newmarket sounds real nice to me,” glowed Timothy.
Remembering the injunctions of the servant, he was taking his adieu, when his host asked, in a lower voice than that in which the conversation had been carried on:
“I suppose you have not heard from your cousin?”
Timothy looked at him in astonishment. Had Sir John asked after the Grand Llama of Tibet he would have been as well prepared to answer.
“Why, no, sir—no—er—is he alive?”