"Yes, pretty well, if it wasn't for William's health."
"What's the matter? Ain't he well?"
"He's been very poorly lately. It's very trying work going about from race-course to race-course, standing in the mud and wet all day long…. He caught a bad cold last winter and was laid up with inflammation of the lungs, and I don't think he ever quite got over it."
"Don't he go no more to race meetings?"
"He hasn't been to a race meeting since the beginning of the winter. It was one of them nasty steeplechase meetings that laid him up."
"Do 'e drink?"
"He's never drunk, but he takes too much. Spirits don't suit him. He thought he could do what he liked, great strong-built fellow that he is, but he's found out his mistake."
"He does his betting in London now, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Esther, hesitating—"when he has any to do. I want him to give it up; but trade is bad in this neighbourhood, leastways, with us, and he don't think we could do without it."
"It's very hard to keep it dark; some one's sure to crab it and bring the police down on you."