"Withdraw!"
"Precisely. And desire David to come here."
"I won't," said Dick flatly. "If you want to rub it into Lestrange that way, send Bailey. And I say it's a confounded shame."
"Richard!"
His round face ablaze, Dick thrust his hands in his pockets, facing his uncle stubbornly.
"After his splendid fight, to stop him now? Do you know how they take being put out, those fellows? Why, when the Italian car went off the track for good, last night, with its chain tangled up with everything underneath, its driver sat down and cried. And you'd come down on Lestrange when he's winning—I won't do it, I won't! Send Bailey; I can't tell him."
"If you want to discredit the car and its driver, Mr. Ffrench, you can do it without me," slowly added Bailey. "But it won't be any use to send for Mr. David, because he won't come."
The autocrat of his little world looked from one rebel to the other, confronted with the unprecedented.
"If I wish to withdraw him, it is to place him out of danger," he retorted with asperity. "Not because I wish to mortify him, naturally. Is that clear? Does he want to pass the next thirteen hours under this ordeal?"
"I'll tell you what he wants," answered Dick. "He wants to be let alone. It seems to me he's earned that."