"The anxieties of a gigantic business, my dear Stallbrass----"
"Yes, a little too gigantic if he doesn't look out; and likely to be a good deal less before he's done with it!"
"What do you mean by that? you're so infernally enigmatical, my good fellow," said old Guy on with great irritability, "that, damme, one might as well talk to the--the riddle Egyptian thing."
"O, I'm sorry I spoke--never holler! as old Jack Green says," replied Mr. Stallbrass, who was easily offended. "I'll be as mum as the dumb cove at Manchester for the rest of the day."
"What a doosid provokin' fellow you are!" screamed Mr. Guyon in a fresh access of petulance. "Didn't you understand that I asked you to speak, and not be silent? What was that you were saying about Streightley?"
"It's not what I say, but what every body--old Jack Green and the rest of 'em, are saying--that he's going too much a-head; that he was hard hit by that bank smash; that instead of pulling up, he went a-head after that; and that he must look out!"
Whether the information thus conveyed was new to Mr. Guyon or not, could not have been guessed by the expression of his features. A twitch passed across his face; but when he spoke his looks expressed scorn rather than astonishment, and he said, "Parcel of dam' cackling fellows; let 'em leave Streightley alone. He'll be a merchant-prince when they've returned to their native gutters, by Jove!" The old gentleman braved it out nobly; but it was only by a strong effort, for his heart sunk within him, and he felt a presentiment of impending evil.
After breakfast Mr. Stallbrass lighted a very big cigar, and, as a thin soft rain was beginning to fall, put on a very big driving-coat, with double-sewn seams, which asserted themselves in a very prominent manner, with innumerable pockets, which either gaped wide-open or hid themselves under pent-house ledges, and with a large collar, which, when raised, took in all Mr. Stallbrass's beard and a huge portion of his face. Mr. Guyon having also muffled himself up to the best of his ability, they climbed into the mail phaeton, and started; Mr. Stallbrass driving his splendid pair in excellent style, cutting in and out in the most workmanlike manner, and eliciting great admiration from the cabmen and boys. Before they had gone very far the rain ceased, and Mr. Guyon began to feel the reviving influence of the fresh air, which, with some new information about Devilskin which he received from a mysterious and shabby man, who stopped their phaeton at the foot of Westminster Bridge, made the old gentleman perk up again, and talk in his usual frivolous rattle to his companion, though that strange, puffed, bloated look had not faded out of his face.
Mr. Stallbrass was not given to conversation when he was driving, his attention being almost entirely occupied with his horses, which he had brought to a great state of perfection and simultaneous stepping; so that, with the exception of pointing with his whip to one or two houses where "old Jack Green" had either lived, or had known some one who had lived there, which gave the place quite an interest in Mr. Stallbrass's eyes, he was silent during the drive, and his companion was left to his own reflections. And these were not of a particularly pleasant kind. Mr. Guyon had hacked the favourite for the steeplechase now about to be decided, to a far greater extent than any one, even his sporting friend beside him, knew of; and until that present moment had never seriously attempted to realise his position in case his horse should be beaten. Floating through life in his usual airy manner, with good clothes on his back and a few pounds in his pocket, which prevented him feeling the pressure of any immediate necessity, "handsome Ned Guyon" closed his eyes to disagreeable objects in his old age as readily as he had done in his youth, and sturdily refused to look at the shadows of any coming events. Should his horse win--and he must, damme, he must--Mr. Guyon would, on the settling-day, come into possession of what he termed "a hatful" of money; enough to pay off all his most pressing creditors, without the necessity of seeking aid from Streightley, whose stern face was like a very baleful vision before his father-in-law's imagination. And if the horse were beaten--the old gentleman took off his hat and wiped his brow, on which great beads of sweat had burst out at the mere supposition--well, if the horse were beaten, he should quietly drop across to Boulogne, and stay there until matters were blown over. Katharine would send him pocket-money, and that sort of thing; and there was life in the old dog yet, and, damme, they should see he wasn't beaten.
Such was the tenor of Mr. Guyon's concluding reflections as Mr. Stallbrass turned the spanking chestnuts, who had spanked so much all the way from town as to be covered with foam and lather, into the muddy lane leading to the raceground, which was already lined on either side with crowds of countrymen and village loafers, gathered together to gape and chaff in that blunderheaded manner so pleasant to the English rustic. There were plenty of drags both before and behind them, and Mr. Stallbrass--who affected the coachman whenever he had the reins in his hand--was perpetually jerking his little finger into the air, or waving his whip in answer to recognitions, feeling all the time thoroughly happy at being seen in the company of such an unmistakable and well-known "West-end nob" as Mr. Guyon. Paying the entrance-fee, they turned up through a gate on to the turf; no sooner had they reached which than Mr. Stallbrass had a new excitement, and a new triumph, for the Hon. William Trafford, known as "Tit Trafford" from his love of horse-flesh, ranging up alongside in his drag, and knowing both Guyon and Stallbrass, proposed to the latter to "have a spurt;" and away went Tit Trafford's four bays and Stallbrass's chestnut pair careering off in a race in which the latter had by no means the worst of it. Mr. Guyon disapproved of this proceeding, which caused him to clutch wildly at different portions of the phaeton, and shook and bumped him woefully,--disapproved of it so much that he pronounced it "infernally stoopid," and only fit to have been the act of a "dam schoolboy." It was not until they had secured a good place in the rank, horses had been removed, and a capital lunch spread, that the old gentleman recovered his equanimity.