“Yes, but what are you going to do with the shop?”
“The shop was the origin of it all. If it hadn't been for the shop I dare say I never should have thought of the race-horses. My father and I could never work together. I offered to buy his surplus fruit and vegetables, and, without absolutely binding myself to deal with no one else, I had assured him of my chief custom. Naturally I expected something in return—I expected him to let me have peaches in April and strawberries in March. You cannot do this without using a good deal of heating power. I spoke to the gardener several times. Often when I went into the houses I found the pipes nearly cold. I got tired of this, and I paid a man out of my own pocket to keep the furnaces properly stoked, and—would you believe it?—my father actually raised objections—objected to my paying a man to look after his glass-houses as they should be looked after. He said he would not order in any more coke, that I'd have to get along with what there was in the garden; he said he wished the shop at the devil. I saw it was hopeless. You cannot help my father, and he won't help himself, so I threw the whole thing up.”
“And when are you going to start the new scheme?”
“Immediately. One of my reasons for accepting fourteen thousand pounds down as a settlement in full was because I was beginning to fear that he might get wind of my marriage. From one or two things I have heard lately, I have reason to suspect that the secret is beginning to ooze out, and I thought it might be as well to take time by the forelock.”
“And you told him? What did he say?”
“What people usually say when they criticise other people's lives without knowing anything of their temptations and sufferings. But I want to tell you about my scheme. I have bought Blue Mantle, the winner of the Czarewitch, and only beaten by a length for the Cambridgeshire, a three-year-old, with eight stone on his back; a most unlucky horse—if he had been in the Leger or Derby he would have won one or both. He broke down when he was four years old. By King Tom out of Merry Agnes, by Newminster out of Molly Bawn.”
“I didn't know you knew so much about racing.”
“I know more than you think. I don't let out all I know.”
“And how much did you pay for Blue Mantle?”
“Dirt cheap. I can imagine myself two years hence, when my first batch of yearlings is put up for sale—500, 650, 800, 1000, knocked down for 1000 guineas, brown colt by Blue Mantle out of Wild Rose, bred by William Brookes, Esq.”