“I was below in the garden, you know, and could not make out what you were up to. You nearly had my eye out with that hook. I say, what a smash you gave it when it caught in the ivy. Was it broken right off, or only cracked, eh? Cripps will mend it for you, won’t you, Cripps?”
Neither Mr Cripps nor Loman spoke a word. The latter saw that concealment was no longer possible; and bitterly he rued the day when first he heard the name of Cripps.
That worthy, seeing the game to have come beautifully into his own hands, was not slow to take advantage of it. He beckoned Loman into the inner parlour, whither the boy tremblingly followed, leaving Simon to finish his glass of “the usual” undisturbed.
I need not repeat the painful conversation that ensued between the sharper and the wretched boy. It was no use for the latter to deny or explain. He was at the mercy of the man, and poor mercy it was. Cripps, with many oaths and threats, explained to Loman that he could, if he chose, have him up before a magistrate for fraud, and that he would do so for a very little. Loman might choose for himself between a complete exposure, involving his disgrace for life, or paying the price of the rod down and 20 besides, and he might consider himself lucky more was not demanded.
The boy, driven to desperation between terror and shame, implored mercy, and protested with tears in his eyes that he would do anything, if only Cripps did not expose him.
“You know what it is, then,” replied Cripps.
“But how am I to get the 20 pounds? I daren’t ask for it at home, and there’s no one here will lend it me. Oh, Cripps, what shall I do?” and the boy actually caught Mr Cripps’s hand in his own as he put the question.
“Well, look here,” said Mr Cripps, unbending a little, “that 20 pounds I must have, there’s no mistake about it; but I don’t want to be too hard on you, and I can put you up to raising the wind.”
“Oh, can you?” gasped Loman, eager to clutch at the faintest straw of hope. “I’ll do anything.”
“Very good; then it’s just this: I’ve just got a straight tip about the Derby that I know for certain no one else has got—that is, that Sir Patrick won’t win, favourite and all as he is. Now there’s a friend of mine I can introduce you to, who’s just wanting to put a twenty on the horse, if he can find any one to take it. It wouldn’t do for me to make the wager, or he’d smell a rat; but if you put your money against the horse, you’re bound to win, and all safe. What do you say?”