He winced. He did not want me to tell him the truth. If the truth was (as it was) that I didn’t care two cassowary’s eggs whether I went to the Derby or not, that was the very last thing he desired to hear. He wanted to keep his opinion of me as unimpaired by such idiosyncrasies, as I would permit. These thoughts rippled over the mild surface of his features like gusts of wind across the waters of a pond. I allowed the words to die away in my throat. After all, to give pain flagrantly—
“Promise me,” he urged, “p-p-promise me you’ll take a day off and go to-morrow. It’s one of the sights of the world. The Downs black with people——”
“Black?” I murmured, “surely not in this heat?”
“Oh, well, covered with people then, stiff with people, crowded for miles and miles with millions and millions of all classes in the land——”
“Dear, dear,” I said, “first, second, and third!”
He ignored this miserable attempt at buffoonery.
“Yes,” he averred, “all classes in the land, thimble-rigging, cocoanut shying, confidence tricking, eating, drinking, laughing, cheering. Vehicles of all sorts, shapes, sizes, motive power, blocking all the roads in the neighbourhood. And the horses, my dear boy, the horses! Until you’ve seen those horses, trained to a hair, with coats like satin, ready to run for their lives, why, you simply haven’t seen anything. And the crowd in the paddock. You must see the crowd in the paddock. And the bookies. No man’s lived, till he’s been done down on the Downs. Now promise me faithfully——”
“Very well,” I said hurriedly to forestall the otherwise inevitable repetition, “I promise....”
It was rather fun, I admit. From the moment when the wheel-barrow on which, apparently, I had made the journey in the company of a Zulu chief, Lady Diana Manners, Mr. Justice Salter, and a dear little Eskimo girl aged seven, drew up at Boulter’s Lock—no, no—not Boulter’s Lock—Tattenham Corner, I knew I was in for one of the great days of my life. There, glittering in the sunlight in all its pristine colouring, stood the brand-new Tattenham Corner House, erected for the occasion by Sir Joseph Lyons himself, who, with Lord Howard de Walden on one side of him and the Prime Minister on the other, stood in the doorway receiving his guests. A prodigious negro, with an unexpectedly small voice, announced me (for some reason) as “Mr. Mallaby Deeley,” and I found myself walking on a vast deep verandah, laid out with innumerable little luncheon tables, through which a long procession of horses was intricately manœuvring.