“See that!” ejaculated Mike, a pleasant smile of satisfaction rippling the furrows of his face; “see how he picks out the best friend the stable's got.”
Diablo had stretched his lean head down, and was trying to nibble with gentle lip the carrot Allis held half hidden behind her skirt. There was none of Lucretia's timidity in Diablo's approach; it was full of an assumption of equality, of trust in the intentions of the stranger who had come with the mistress he hart faith in.
“They're all like that when Miss Allis is about,” explained Mike; “there never would be a bad horse if the stable-b'ys worked the same way. Tie him up, Shandy,” he added. “Even the jockeys spoil their mounts,” Gaynor continued in a monotone; “the horse'll gallop better for women any time—they treat thim gentler, that's why.”
“Most interesting,” hazarded Mortimer, feeling some acknowledgment of Mike's information was due.
“It's the trut'. Miss Allis'd take Lauzanne, or the Black, or the little mare, an' get a better race out av thim than any jock I've seen ridin' hereabout.”
“Mike,” exclaimed Allis, “you flatter me; you almost make me wish that I were a jockey.”
“Well, bot' t'umbs up! Ye'd av made a good un, Miss, an' that's no disrespect to ye, I'm sayin'.”
Mortimer smiled condescendingly. Allis's quick eye caught his expression of amused discontent; it angered her. Mike's praise had been practically honest. To him a good jockey was the embodiment of courage and honesty and intelligence; but she knew that to Mortimer it simply meant a phase of life he considered quite outside the pale of recognized respectability. Somehow she felt that Mike's encomium had lowered her perceptibly in the opinion of this man whom she herself affected to look upon with but toleration.
They visited all the other stalls, eight of them, and listened to Mike's eulogies on the inmates. Coming down the other side of the passage, the last occupied box stall contained Lauzanne.
“Miss Porter'll tell ye about this wan,” said Mike, diplomatically. “He's shaped like a good horse, an' his sire, old Lazzarone, landed many a purse, an' the 'Suburban,' too—won it on three legs, fer he was clean gone in his pins, I'll take me oath to that. He was a good horse—whin he liked. Perhaps Lauzanne'll do the same some day, fer all I know.”