Much cheering and acclamation followed the conclusion of the Captain’s story, under cover whereof Jack Beaupeep insinuated to Lord Alfred his opinion that the history in question was better suited to the capacity of the marines than to that of able-bodied seamen, to which his Lordship, quoting Horace, replied, that “Judaeus Apella” might believe it, but that he did not; which, as he said it in the original language of the Roman poet, elicited from his companion the remark that it sounded very pretty, and he wished that he understood Dutch.
“But about this said race; what is it to be, and when is it to come off?” inquired the heavy cornet, who possessed every requisite except brains to become a first-rate blackleg.
“Do you really mean that you’ve a horse you’d like to enter for, say a hurdle-race, Captain O’Brien?” observed the first guardsman, thinking the gallant Hibernian had been rhapsodising, and desirous of exposing the fact.
“Indeed then an’ I have, if you’re plucky enough to enter any horse against him,” was the confident reply. “Broth-of-a-boy will show ’em the way home in style; but there may be a very pretty race for second, nevertheless.”
A laugh followed this slightly gasconading assertion, and the “Heavy” continued: “Suppose we try and make a good race of it, and each of us here enter a horse, and do the thing well.”
“Mais que diable—vot shall he mean?” inquired Monsieur Guillemard, completely out of his depth; “to entaire, to valk into!—how shall ve valk into a horse?”
“Oh, it’s a mere façon de parler,” returned Beaupeep, delighted at an opportunity of mystifying a foreigner; “it’s merely a term used in this kind of game; it is a sort of lottery, in which each person thinks of—invents, in fact—some horse’s name, Jaques-bon-Homme, or Mart-de-ma-Vie, or any other name that occurs to him; then, some day that may be agreed on, these names are written on slips of paper, and drawn out of a hat or cap, and those that don’t lose, win; but there’s very little chance of losing—almost everybody wins; it’s a pretty game, and very simple when you’re used to it. Do you quite understand, or shall I say it again?”
“Mais oui, you are polite, not at all. I shall apprehend him one day, when I shall have played at him: vive la bagatelle! long live zie rubbish!” was the cheerful rejoinder.
While this little conversation had been proceeding, the dark, handsome young man, yclept Phil Tirrett, receiving a hint from O’Brien, conveyed in a contraction of the eyelid, so slight that no one but himself perceived it, wrote a few words on a scrap of paper, and tossed it to Horace D’Almayne. Having read it, D’Almayne crushed it in his hand; then, turning to Lord Alfred, he said—
“Do you know who my left hand neighbour is?”