“Bless my soul, sir,” cried the boy, his golden Future—not without “mother in a comfortable cottage, and easy for life,” let us hope, in the foreground—all swept away by this relentless prediction—“Bless my soul, sir, I think I should cut his throat.”
“I like this fellow,” cried Derrick, slapping the lad upon the back. “Look you, here is twenty pounds, which you may keep in any case, and you had better take it now, for if you lose the race, there will be plenty of folks to want all my money. But if you win, boy, I will make it Two Hundred.”
“And I will make it Four,” added Master Walter fervently.
“So, you see, you will be a made man for life,” remarked the trainer kindly. “But listen to me, Sam, or else all this glitter will be the merest moonshine. Be sure never touch your horse with whip or spur; for Withers, I have noticed, never did. But if the beast jibs—I saw Jack do this at the trial-race, and once before—snatch at his ear. There may be some secret in the way of handling it, but there is no time for finding that out. Do you twist it hard.”
“O sir, I'll twist it off, but he shall win,” returned the jockey plaintively; and off he went to don his new owner's colours—black and red—as proudly as an ensign to his first battle-field.
It had got about that there was some hitch about Menelaus, and the odds were rising rapidly against him; and when the large and somewhat ungainly animal took his preparatory canter in front of the stand under the guidance of the uncelebrated Hicks, they rose still higher. If any of his ancient confidence had remained to Captain Lisgard, he could scarcely have resisted the tempting offers that were being roared out in harsh and nasal tones from every quarter of the Ring.
“I'll lay 7 to 1 against Many Laws” (for most of the racing fraternity favoured Mr Derrick's pronunciation of that name); “I'll lay 8 to 1.”
“I'll take 4 to 1. I name the Winner” (for the relation between The King and the French horse in the betting was that of buckets in a well).
“I take odds that Menelaus is not placed,” exclaimed a shrill and sneering voice close beside where the two men most interested in that depreciated animal were standing.
“What odds will you take, my Lord?” inquired Captain Lisgard, biting his lip in wrath, for it was Lord Stonart who was offering them, the man whose confidential agent had been talking with Blanquette, and to whose machinations it was almost certainly owing that Menelaus had lost his rider.