"Yes."
"Will he seize your things immediately the debt is due, or might he give you a few weeks' grace?"
"Not an hour's. I borrowed the money, giving him the house and live-stock as security, and the bit of land that's unmortgaged, and he'll clap a man in ten minutes after the clock strikes on the day the money is due."
"But if you have borrowed the money on the live stock, surely, since Garryowen is part of the live stock, it would be unlawful to remove him?"
"Listen to me," said Mr. French. "I borrowed the money before I owned Garryowen. Sure, the main reason I borrowed it was to buy him. He's not part of the security."
"Well, then, Mr. Lewis can't touch him."
"Yes, maybe, by law. But how long does it take to prove a thing by law? Suppose he puts a man in. Well, the man will seize the colt with everything else; then the lawyers will go to work to prove the colt's not part of the security and they'll prove it, maybe, about next June twelvemonth, and by that time two City and Suburbans will have been run, and Garryowen will be good for nothing but to make glue of. Besides, these blackguards here may do him an injury. No, the plan is to slip out by the back door. Major Lawson, an old friend of mine, has a stable at Epsom. We can bring the colt there two days before the race. I'm beginning to see clear before me and, faith, it's through your eyes I'm seeing."
"You are sure Mr. Lewis can't come down on you before April?"
"No. I paid him his half-year's interest last month. I paid him close on two hundred pounds."