CHAPTER LI.—OTHELLO VISITS CASSIO.
Contrary to Mr. Philip Tirrett’s expectation, Don Pasquale’s delicate fore leg improved under training, and became so nearly sound that he and Captain O’Brien were quite depressed when they reflected that but for its temper, which was vile, the horse was really worth two out of the £350 they had received from Lord Alfred Courtland for it; and regretted with sundry strong but unavailing expletives their folly in not having demanded £500, which they now considered to be its figure in proper (i. e. their own dirty) hands. A conclave had been held at the Pandemonium, and the handsome guardsman, and the fast cornet, and the heavy lieutenant, and sundry other noble and gallant cavaliers, had entered spicy screws, with impossible names; and a steeple-chase, with gentlemen riders, was to come off in a sporting locality, within easy distance of London, on a certain day. This day had nearly arrived, when, on the same afternoon which witnessed Alice Coverdale’s return home, and the uncomfortable scene produced by the delivery of Lord Alfred’s letter, that young nobleman was seated at a library-table in his fashionable lodgings, poring over his betting-book, which, since the Blackwall dinner, was, we suspect, the only book he had looked into, when “to him entered” Horace D’Almayne.
“What! at it still?” he exclaimed; “why, mon cher, you’ll be fit for some ‘bookkeeping-by-double-entry’ style of appointment before this business comes off. How do you stand by this time?”
“Safe to win £500 if the Don does but run true,” was the reply.
“And if he should make a fiasco by any unlucky chance?”
“Don’t talk about it; time enough to face evil when it comes, without going half-way to meet it. The Don is looking splendid, he improves every day under training, and even Tirrett seems surprised at his performance. Dick took him over the brook this morning, and, by Jove! he cleared it in his stride, and six feet beyond, at the least. Tirrett seems sure about the line of course; if so, that brook will win us the race. Captain O’Brien’s is the only horse I’m at all afraid of, and Tirrett’s got out of his groom that Broth-of-a-boy won’t face water.”
“Witnessing these trials necessitates a frightful amount of early rising, does it not, mon cher?” inquired D’Almayne, with a half-pitying, half-provoking smile; “breakfast comes off at six, I suppose, instead of eleven or twelve? You look sleepy now from your unusual exertions.”
“Well I may,” was the reply; “I dined with the Guards’ Mess yesterday, and went knocking about with Bellingham and Annesley afterwards; got home about three a.m., had a cigar and a bottle of soda-water, changed my dress clothes, and slept in the arm-chair until Tirrett came for me in a dog-cart at half-past four,—for they take the Don out as soon as its light.”
“You certainly improve, mon ami; you have learned how to live, instead of merely existing, as you used to do, and are better able to take care of yourself:—which is fortunate, by the way, for I’ve come to tell you (what on your account I’m very sorry for) that I shall be unable to be with you at this said steeple-chase.” A start, and an exclamation of surprise, we had almost said of consternation, which escaped Lord Alfred at this announcement, might have suggested that he did not feel quite such implicit confidence in his own resources as his associate’s compliment would seem to imply. He only said, however—