“Now will you tell me what you mean?” I felt that I should like to knock their tipsy heads together; “this may be a very fine joke to you. But no excitement excuses it.”
“Excitement! Cool as a cucumber, sir;” cried the Major, with a countenance by no means cool, “I should like to know what you mean by that insinuation.”
“Leave it to me, Major; leave it all to me. Our friend Kit is a little hasty,” said Henderson, whispering to me—“Don’t mind him, a very grand fellow—but has had too much. Major Monkhouse, it is our place to make every allowance for married men. They never know very well what they are about.”
“By George, sir, you are right. Mr. Archerson, shake hands. I honour you for your integrity, sir. Sorry for you, very sorry, and apologize with candour. Every Englishman adds to his self-respect by that.”
“How he puts things! It comes of being in the Army. Now go to sleep, Major, it will do you a lot of good, while I tell friend Kit all we have been doing for him.”
By this time my hopes were reduced to proper level, and I had ceased to glance through the trees behind them, in search of somebody who might never come again. For these two men had come in with such a flourish, that the wildest ideas ran through me.
“A drop of ice-cold water from your pump,” said Sam, “and then I’ll tell you something that will please you. My coppers are hot, because I have taken next to nothing; and the dust—you should have seen it! You have heard of the celebrated Zinka, haven’t you, the most wonderful creature that was ever born? Well, my dear friend there, the very finest fellow that ever stepped this earth, sir—don’t deny it, Major, but go to by-by—I met him at the corner on Monday, Kit; and old Pots was there, and that made me talk of you. ‘Tell you what,’ he says, ‘let us see the great Zinka. She can’t help being there on Wednesday. It is the only day in the year you can catch her; but the stars always bring her to the Derby. If he won’t come, you bring something of his, something he has worn, or had about him. If it is bad news, why we need not tell him, and if it is good, why it will be new life to him.”
“Of course I jumped at it, and it shows what a fool I am that it had never occurred to me. Zinka is the queen of all the gipsies, although she is only five and twenty, the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth. Don’t tell Sally that I said so. Why she is Cinnaminta’s daughter, that my old mare is named from. So you may suppose that she knows everything. If we could only get her to spot the winners for us—but she won’t, she wouldn’t for a hundred thousand pounds.
“Well, I prigged your handkerchief yesterday, my boy. No professional could have done it neater; and a queer thing it was that it should be your wife’s with her maiden name done in her own hair. Nothing could be luckier, and we had a rare laugh at it. Zinka was on the downs, not like a common gipsy, but half a mile away towards Preston, in a beautiful tent of her own, for she never mixes with the common ruck. It takes an introduction, I can tell you, and a good one too, to get a word from her. But the Major managed that, for he knows something of her people. There is no flummery about her. You cross her hand with a five pound note, and a crown-piece in it, and you tell her what you want, and whatever you give her to hold she keeps.”
“You don’t mean to say that a dirty Gipsy woman has got one of my Kitty’s pocket-handkerchiefs?”