Amos scowled at him, but said to Allys, respectfully: “Please’um, don’t ax dat dar fool boy no mo’ ’bout de Flower—hit’s mighty bad luck sayin’ whut you gwine do, ontwel you is done done it.”
“Dar come Marse Billy Wickliffe—you kin ax him all you wanter.” Tim giggled, then clapped his hand over his mouth. Tim was lathy—long-legged, long-armed, with an ashy-black complexion and very big eyes. As he stood fondling the Flower’s nose, he glared disdain of all the other candidates, or, rather, of the knots of folk gathered admiringly about them.
Allys turned half about—for two breaths at least she had a snobbish impulse to overlook Billy and hurry away. Billy was tall, with a face like a young Greek god—but how greet him there with the Hammond girl to see, in a checked suit, patently ready-made, with the noisiest of shirts, a flowing bright red tie, and a sunburned straw hat? If it were only Adair, she would not mind—Hilary was, she knew, very much more critical. She might have run away, but that she caught the Hammond girl’s look—amusement and satisfaction struggled through it, although the young lady tried hard to mask them.
Allys turned wholly, holding out both hands, and saying: “Billy, by all that’s delightful! I’ve just been telling these people about you. Come, show them I kept well within the truth.”
Billy caught the outstretched hands, his heart so openly in his eyes Hilary wanted to strangle him on the spot. The Hammond girl laughed, and turned to whisper in Van Ammerer’s ear. Adair, alone of the group, shook hands. Although the others gave him civil, if formal, greeting, Billy felt their hostility intuitively, and flung up his head like a stag at bay.
“You got my note—have you done it yet?” he asked, bending over Allys in a fashion that made Hilary’s teeth set hard.
She laughed back at him: “Have you done it yet? Bet your whole fortune on the Heathflower thing at a hundred to one?”
Billy nodded confidently. “That’s just what I have done. Unc’ Robert was willin’—he thought as I did, such a little bit o’ money was better risked than kept.”
“H’m! I hope you kept the price of a return ticket,” Hilary said, trying to speak jocularly. “Really, Mr. Wickliffe, you can’t think that ugly brute has a chance to be even in the money.”
“My money’s talkin’ for me,” Billy said, facing Hilary. “’Tain’t much—only a thousand. Lordy! if I could, wouldn’t I burn up these ringsters! You ought to a-heard ’em, Miss Allys, when I went at ’em. ‘The Heathflower thing, did you say?’ the first one asked me. ‘Oh, say! do you want to rob us poor fellows? Couldn’t think of layin’ you less’n a thousand to one on that proposition.’ But he cut it mighty quick to a hundred to one when I said: ‘I’d take you for a hundred, only I know you couldn’t pay.’ Tell you he rubbed his slate in a hurry after I got down fifty. The next one tried to be smart as he was—sang out to some o’ the rest: ‘Here’s the wild man from Borneo, come to skin us alive!’ Then made out he was skeered to death when I offered him one little pitiful rag of a ten. But when they saw me keep on right down the line, some of ’em shut up and looked a little anxious, some cut the price, and some got sassier than ever. They called me Rube, and Johnny-on-the-spot-of-wealth, and Shekels, and a heap of other things. But I didn’t mind. Still, next time I’ll send my money by one of those commissioner fellows. To-day I couldn’t risk it.”