“Who the deuce are you, fellow?” asked the trainer, addressing the individual thus uncomfortably situated.
“It ain’t o’ no use talking to he, for a can’t answer with a wisp o’ straw stuffed atween his jaws,” observed Joe sententiously.
“Take it out then, and untie his legs so that he can stand up and answer my questions.”
“Better shut the dour fust then, meister, for he’s a proper slippery customer, I can tell you,” returned the groom. “He promised to gag me and tie my hands behind me, I do hear said, but he’s found two can play at that trick. Get up, ye warmint,” he continued, applying a by no means gentle kick to the ribs of his prostrate captive, “and show your ugly mug.”
The person thus upcomplimentarily apostrophised rose slowly and stood sullenly awaiting the irainer’s scrutiny. The latter, holding the lantern so that its light fell upon the stranger’s features, recognised him immediately.
“Mr. Beverley,” he said in a tone more of contemptuous pity than of anger, “is it you, sir? I knew times had been getting very bad with you, but I did not think you had come to this.”
The man’s lip quivered—the reproach touched him more than the most virulent abuse could have done. His had been, we fear, no very unusual fate; at all events he had only fallen one step lower than many who had followed the same career as he had done. Well-born, rich, and with above average abilities, a taste for gambling and low company had caused him to sink lower and lower in the scale of society, till the depth of misery and degradation to which he had been reduced, and the extent of the bribe offered by Turnbull, had overcome his last feeling of honour or honesty, and he had consented to become the agent of another’s villainy. Slangsby eyed him sternly for a moment, and then said—
“You know what you have laid yourself open to, I suppose?” The other nodded in sign of assent.
“I don’t wish to be hard upon you, sir,” the trainer continued, “so if you will speak out and tell me all, we may perhaps come to some better understanding: what say you?”
The other reflected a moment and then replied in a low voice, “I will do as you wish, but not here.”