From his seat beside Pulcher, ‘Jimmy’ watched the mare returning to her box.
“When I’ve cashed your cheque,” said the trainer, “you can send for her;” and, turning on his heel, he went towards his house. The voice of Pulcher followed him.
“Blast your impudence! Git on, bobtail, we’ll shake the dust off ’ere.”
Among the fringing fields the dog-cart hurried away. The sun slanted, the heat grew less, the colour of young wheat and of the charlock brightened.
“The tyke! By Gawd, Jimmy, I’d ’ave hit him on the mug! But you’ve got one there. She’s a bit o’ blood, my boy; and I know the trainer for her, Polman—no blasted airs about ’im.”
‘Jimmy’ sucked at his cheroot.
“I ain’t had your advantages, George, and that’s a fact. I got into it too young, and I’m a little chap. But I’ll send the —— my cheque to-morrow. I got my pride, I ’ope.” It was the first time that thought had ever come to him.
III
Though not quite the centre of the Turf, the Green Dragon had nursed a coup in its day, nor was it without a sense of veneration. The ownership of Calliope invested ‘Jimmy’ Shrewin with the importance of those out of whom something can be had. It took time for one so long accustomed to beck and call, to mole-like procedure, and the demeanour of young bloods, to realise that he had it. But slowly, with the marked increase of his unpaid-for cheroots, with the way in which glasses hung suspended when he came in, with the edgings up to him, and a certain tendency to accompany him along the street, it dawned on him that he was not only an out-of-bounds bookie, but a man. So long as he had remained unconscious of his double nature he had been content with laying the odds, as best he might, and getting what he could out of every situation, straight or crooked. Now that he was also a man, his complacency was ruffled. He suffered from a growing headiness connected with his horse. She was trained, now, by Polman, further along the Downs, too far for Pulcher’s bobtail; and though her public life was carried on at the Green Dragon, her private life required a train journey over night. ‘Jimmy’ took it twice a week—touting his own horse in the August mornings up on the Downs, without drink or talk, or even cheroots. Early morning, larks singing, and the sound of galloping hoofs! In a moment of expansion he confided to Pulcher that it was ‘bally ’olesome.’