“This John Vandy seems to be a straight goer,” said the bushy-whiskered man to himself, as he strode along, “and as proud as a peacock of his new charge. He hopes to make a pot out of her himself, so it’s hardly worth bothering with him. And he is too careful, curse him, to make it worth while fixing it up with a stable hand. He or his son feed and groom the mare themselves, and she is always under lock and key when not at exercise. Added to which, she is a vile-tempered brute for a stranger to go near at any time, so I must look in another direction. The light weight will not give them much choice in the way of a jockey. Only a lad can ride at that, and, of course, it will be a lad that Vandy knows and has employed before. He would not be likely to trust this great coup to a stranger if one he knew was to his hand. Proceeding so far, I have only to refer to the horses racing from this stable at or about this weight, and if I find one name more often mentioned than another I’ve got the article sought for.”
Next morning Huey was busy looking up the racing records in a file of the Referee. The search appeared to give him satisfaction, for he metaphorically patted himself on the back as he muttered, “Jack Butt’s the lad, not a doubt of it. Let me only find him and have five minutes’ plain English on the quiet, and the trick is done.”
Another interview by the bushy-whiskered man who, needless to say, was Huey himself with the beer-imbibing groom at Randwick, and he learned all he sought about Jack Butt.
“Yes, Jack Butt was in the stable—one of the boss’s apprentices—a stuck-up prig of a fellow—no good at the work at all, but was the best light-weight they had, so got a mount now and then—a lad with no spunk in him, a regular milksop, going to Sunday-school and all that kind of cat-lap. Why, I heard him ask Old Jack to-day for a day off to-morrow, so that he could go to one of these religious picnics they hold down the harbour.”
“And did the boss let him go?”
“Let him go? Of course he did. He thinks a lot of that lad, which is more than I do. Them white-livered chickens don’t agree with me.”
* * * * *
The committee of the Sons and Daughters of the Holy Brotherhood had chartered that commodious ferry steamer the Lord Nelson for an excursion to Middle Harbour, and the Sons and Daughters were invited to combine a day’s sea-air and virtue for the modest sum of eighteenpence.
When Huey stepped on board this craft at Circular Quay, arrayed in his bushy whiskers, a long black coat and white tie, he found the steamer crammed. Evidently the Sons and Daughters had rolled up in strong force, and brought their parents with them. And each and every one was decorated with a pink rosette, as though, having assumed a virtue, they wished to put a brand on it, so that the error should not be fallen into by the unregenerate of classing them with common people.
Amidst this concourse it took Huey some little time to find what he sought, but a pale young man, very thin and lanky, met his eye, seated in the bow. Huey turned his steps thither, and by a little bit of manoeuvring managed to place himself as though by chance next to the lad.