“Yes, he’s the right sort, he is, sir; and if ever you feel disposed to sell him, I could, may be, find you a customer.”
Accepting this as a delicate intimation that Mr. Fortescue had taken a fancy to the horse and would like to buy him, I told Jim that I was quite willing to sell at a fair price.
“And what might you consider a fair price, if it is a fair question?” asked the man.
“A hundred guineas,” I answered; for, as I knew that Mr. Fortescue would not “look at a horse,” as Tawney put it, under that figure, it would have been useless to ask less.
“Very well, sir. I will speak to my master, and let you know.”
Ranger, as I called the horse, was a purchase of Alston’s. Liking his looks (though Bertie was really a very indifferent judge), he had bought him out of a hansom-cab for forty pounds, and after a little “schooling,” the creature took to jumping as naturally as a duck takes to water. Sixty pounds may seem rather an unconscionable profit, but considering that Ranger was quite sound and up to weight, I don’t think a hundred guineas was too much. A dealer would have asked a hundred and fifty.
At any rate, Mr. Fortescue did not think it too much, for Rawlings presently brought me word that his master would take the horse at the price I had named, if I could warrant him sound.
“In that case it is a bargain,” I said, “for I can warrant him sound.”
“All right, sir. I’ll send one of the grooms over to your place for him to-morrow.”
Shortly afterward I fell in with Keyworth, and as a matter of course we talked about Mr. Fortescue.