"Frank? Oh, he won't be consulted! I don't suppose he'd mind, though, so long as I am about the place to look after him. And he does want such a lot of looking after too, Chris; you've no idea, he's just like a child, and simply lost away from his books and specimens. Oh! those dreadful specimens"—she shuddered—"he will show them to me, and he leaves them about in the most impossible places, and I do get such shocks sometimes!"
"He's a clear old chap," said Chris, "and not so very old after all, is he? He can't be, taking a line through you, you know," lapsing into racing metaphor.
"He's years older than his real age, if you can understand what I mean," Gay laughed, "and I'm no chicken, you know, Chris—twenty-two next birthday!"
"You'll never grow old," he replied. "I've known you some years now, and you haven't changed a bit."
"Not for the better, anyhow, so Frank says," the girl answered.
"Frank's no judge," said Chris sharply, with more feeling in his voice than he usually showed, but Gay didn't seem to notice.
"Here comes Mr. Mackrell," she said, as a sulky swept past, going round the track for a warm up, before the second bell rang for the drivers to get on their marks.
Chris looked on without any interest.
"Take 'em out of those beetle-traps, and put a few fences across the course, then you might see something worth looking at," was his private opinion of trotting, yet the pacer's speed is founded on the camel's, and weedy and lanky as he is, no one who has seen either a trotter or a pacer fully extended in a race, especially if he has watched it coming straight at him, will deny that he is hardly less beautiful when in motion, than miserable-looking when he stands inactive.
A few minutes later, the second bell rang, and the drivers proceeded to their respective marks, some in receipt of a start, others giving one. Carlton Mackrell was on the back mark; the horse he was driving was amongst the fastest milers in England, and his form was fully exposed, with the result that he never improved appreciably on his handicap, as he was always trying, and frequently too close to the winner (often thrown in on previous "judicious form") to be re-handicapped.