“Hold the gentlemen’s horses?” repeated Arabella. Her eye brightened. “Are you fond of horses, Jemmy?”
Jemmy nodded vigorously. Arabella looked round in triumph. “Then I know the very thing!” she said. “Particularly since it is you who are to take charge of him, Mr. Beaumaris!”
Mr. Beaumaris waited in deep foreboding for the blow to fall.
“He must learn to look after horses, and then, as soon as he is a little older, you may employ him as your Tiger!” said Arabella radiantly.
Mr. Beaumaris, whose views on the folly of entrusting blood-cattle to the guardianship of small boys were as unequivocal as they were well-known, replied without a tremor: “To be sure I may. The future now being provided for—”
“But you never drive with a Tiger up behind you!” exclaimed Lord Bridlington. “You have said I know not how many times—”
“I do wish, Bridlington, that you would refrain from interrupting with these senseless comments,” said Mr. Beaumaris.
“But that child is far too young to be a Tiger!” pointed out Lady Bridlington.
Arabella’s face fell. “Yes, he is,” she said regretfully. “Yet it would be the very thing for him, if only we knew what to do with him in the mean time!”
“I think,” said Mr. Beaumaris, “that in the meantime I had better convey him to my own house, and place him in the charge of my housekeeper, pending further discussion between us, Miss Tallant.”