“I can’t,” whispered the agent. “I’ve too much at stake. Get to the mare at once. You, a trainer, can manage that.”
“You talk like a fool, I tell you. Close upon the time like this.”
“Can’t you work it with the guv’nor or Lady T.?”
“No. If I could should I be sitting here jawing? Tried it on, and failed.”
“Think of your five thousand pounds.”
“I tell you you can’t get at the mare.”
“C’rect cards, gents,” came again from without, in Dandy Dinny’s raucous voice. But his cry was unheard within, where Trimmer, with a peculiar Mephistophelian smile upon his face, gave another glance upwards at the gallery, before leaning forward till his lips were quite close to the trainer’s great red ear, into which he whispered—
“No, of course not; but you could get at the man.”
The trainer started to his feet, the cigar he had just lit falling from his gaping mouth, just as Dandy Dinny passed the window, leering in, and then hurried out of sight with his hawking cry, for there was the sound of carriage wheels approaching the hotel.
Trimmer rose too, and laid his hand softly upon Simpkinss arm, as he gazed hard in his companion’s rolling eyes, now directed towards the gallery.