"Is the brougham going out to night?" he asked of his fellow-servant.
"Ordered at ten," said the man. "Night-work again, I expect, I wanted to get out too. Consume the darned card-playing. Was you going anywhere to-night?"
"Nowhere," said Charles.
"It's a beautiful evening," said the man. "If you should by chance saunter up towards Grosvenor Square, and could leave a note for me, I should thank you very much; upon my soul I should."
I don't think Charles ever hesitated at doing a good-natured action in his life. A request to him was like a command. It came as natural to him now to take a dirty, scrawled love-letter from a groom to a scullery-maid as in old times it did to lend a man fifty pounds. He said at once he would go with great pleasure.
The man (a surly fellow enough at ordinary times) thanked him heartily; and, when Charles had got the letter, he sauntered away in that direction slowly, thinking of many things.
"By Jove," he said to himself, "my scheme of hiding does not seem to be very successful. Little more than a fortnight gone, and I am thrown against Welter. What a strange thing!"
It was still early in the afternoon—seven o'clock, or thereabouts—and he was opposite Tattersall's. A mail phaeton, with a pair of splendid horses, attracted his attention and diverted his thoughts. He turned down. Two eminent men on the turf walked past him up the nearly empty yard, and he heard one say to the other—
"Ascot will run to win; that I know. He must. If Haphazard can stay, he is safe."