Thereby Hangs a Tale Part 9

"It's done for you," said Pratt. "Now let's go and get in your bets."

"I'm afraid, Franky," said Trevor, "that you are not only a mercenary man, but a great--I mean little coward."

"Quite right--you're quite right," said Pratt. "I am mercenary because the money's useful, and enables a man to pay his laundress; and as to being a coward, I am--a dreadful coward. I wouldn't mind if it were only skin, that will grow again; but fancy being ragged about and muddied in tussle with that fellow! Why, my dear d.i.c.k, I should have been six or seven pounds out of pocket in no time."

"I wonder who those girls were in the barouche," said Trevor, after a pause.

"Daresay you do," was the reply; "so do I. Sweet girls--very; but you may make yourself quite easy; you will never see either of them again."

"Don't know," said Trevor, slowly. "This is a very little place, this world, and I have often run against people I knew in the most out-of-the-way places."

"Yes, you may do so abroad," said Pratt; "but here, in England, you never do anything of the kind, except in novels. I saw a girl once at the chrysanthemum show in the Temple, and hoped I should ran against her again some day, but I never did. She wasn't so nice, though, as these."

Trevor smiled, and then, encountering one or two gentlemen with whom he had made bets, a little pecuniary business followed, after which the friends strolled along the course.

"By the way," said Trevor, "I was just thinking it rather hard upon our friend of the omnibus; those policemen pounced upon him and walked him off, without much consideration of the case. Well, I don't want to see the fellow again; he made my blood boil to-day."

"Then you will see him, you may depend upon it," said Pratt. "That's just the awkwardness of fate, or whoever the lady is that manages these matters. Owe a man ten pounds, and you will meet him every day like clock-work."

"Why, Franky," said Trevor, laying his hand upon the other's arm, and speaking with the old schoolboy familiarity, "I can't help noticing these money allusions. Have you been very short at times?"

There was a pause of a few moments' duration, and then Pratt said, shortly--"Awfully!"

They walked on then in silence, which was broken at last by Pratt, who said in a hurried way--

"That accounts for my shabby, screwy ways, d.i.c.k, so forgive me for having developed into such a mean little beggar. You see, the governor died and left madam with barely enough to live on, and then she pinched for my education, and she had to fight through it all to get ready for my call to the bar, where, in our innocence--bless us!--we expected that briefs would come showering in, and that, once started in chambers in the Temple, my fortune would be made."

"And the briefs do not shower down yet, Franky?" said Trevor.

"Don't come even in drops. Haven't had occasion for an umbrella once yet. So I went out to Egypt with Landells, you know, and wrote letters and articles for the Geographical; and, somehow, I got elected to the 'Wanderers,' and--here's the gorgeous Van and little Flick."

"Ah, Trevor, my dear boy!" said the first-named gentleman, sauntering up, "thought we should see you somewhere. Flick, have the goodness to slip that into the case for me."

As he spoke, he handed the race-gla.s.s he held in his delicately-gloved hands to the young baronet, who looked annoyed, but closed the gla.s.s, and slipped it into the sling-case hanging at his companion's side.

"We should have seen you before, but we came upon a pair of rural houris in a barouche."

"Where?" said Pratt, sharply.

"Ah, Pratt--you there? How do?" said the Captain, coolly. "Over the other side of the course, in a lane. I couldn't get Landells away."

"Oh--come!" drawled the young baronet.

"Had his gla.s.s turned upon them, and there he was, perfectly transfixed."

"Boot was on the other foot, 'sure you," said Sir Felix. "It was Van first made the discovery. It was so, indeed."

"What, going?" said Vanleigh, as Trevor moved on.

"Yes; we were going to walk all round the course."

"No use to go houri hunting," said Vanleigh, maliciously. "The barouche has gone."

Trevor coloured slightly, and then more deeply, as he saw a smile on the Captain's lip.

"We shall see you again, I daresay, by the stand," he said, taking no notice of the allusion; and, laying a hand upon Pratt's shoulder, he strolled away.

"Well," he said, after a few minutes, "the barouche had not quite disappeared, Franky."

"No," said the other, shortly. "Better for its occupants if it had. I say, d.i.c.k, if I had sisters, it would make me feel mad every time that fellow looked at them."

"What--Landells?"

"Oh no, Felix is a good sort of fellow enough; getting spoiled, but I don't think there's a great deal of harm in him. I've taken a dislike to Van, and I'm afraid I'm rather bitter, and--look, there goes, the barouche! Quick, lend me your gla.s.s!"

"Thanks, no, Franky," said Trevor, quietly, raising it to his eyes, and watching the carriage, which was going down a lane to their left, the owner having apparently given orders for the postboy to drive them from place to place, where they could get a view of the races, which had succeeded each other pretty quickly. "Thanks, no, I will keep it; but, for your delectation, I may mention that the ladies look very charming, the old gentleman very important; and--now they are gone."

He replaced the gla.s.s in its case, smiled good-humouredly at his companion, and they walked on.

"d.i.c.k," said Pratt, after a few moments' silence, "if I were a good-looking fellow like you, I should get married."

"And how about yourself?" said the other, smiling.

"Self? I marry? My dear old fellow, marriage is a luxury for the rich.

I should be very sorry to starve a wife, and--I say, though, I'm as hungry as a hunter. Take me back to London, old fellow, and feed me, without you want to stay."

"Stay--not I!" said Trevor; "a very little of this sort of thing goes a long way with me. But about those two fellows?"

"Let them try to exist without our company, for once in a way," said Pratt, looking earnestly at his friend, who was busy once more with the gla.s.s; but, catching his companion's eye, Trevor closed the binocular, and they left the course.

Volume 1, Chapter V.

THE WRITER OF THE LETTER.

"Woa! d'ye hear? woa! I'm blest if I ever did see sich a 'oss as you are, Ratty, 'ang me if I did. If a chap could drive you without swearing, he must be a downright artch-angel. Holt still, will yer?

Look at that now!"

A jig here at the reins, and Ratty went forward; a lash from the whip, and the horse, a wall-eyed, attenuated beast, with a rat-tail, went backwards, ending by backing the hansom cab, in whose shafts he played at clay mill, going round and round in a perfect slough of a new unmade road, cut into ruts by builders' carts.

"Now, look'ee here," said the driver, our friend of the Pall Mall accident; "on'y one on us can be master, yer know. If you'll on'y say as yer can drive, and will drive, why, I'll run in the sharps, and there's an end on't. Hold still, will yer? Yer might be decent to-day."

The horse suddenly stood still--bogged, with the slushy mud over his fetlocks, and the cab wheels half-way down to the nave.

"Thenky," said the driver, standing up on his perch; "much obliged. I'm blessed!" he muttered. "Buddy may well say as mine's allus the dirtiest keb as comes inter the yard, as well as the shabbiest. 'Struth, what a place! Now, then, get on, will yer?"

The horse gave his Roman-profiled head a shake, and remained motionless.

"Just like yer," said the cabman. "When I want yer to go, yer stop; and when I don't want yer to go, off yer do go, all of a shy, and knocks 'alf a dozen people into the mud, and gets yer driver nearly took up for reckless driving, as the bobbies calls it. Come, get on."