“In a second and a half less time than the last Derby,” said his Lordship drily, after consulting his stop-watch.
“I think I did not bring you here for nothing, my Lord,” said the trainer confidentially.
“Certainly not, Mr Chifney,” returned the other bitterly: “I find myself a poorer man than I had thought to be three minutes ago by fifty thousand pounds. Moreover, I have made the acquaintance of one of the greatest ruffians that I have ever met even upon a race-course. It is altogether an excellent morning's work.”
“It would have been worse for you, my Lord, if you had not come,” answered the trainer with some stiffness; “you would not have thanked me if you had seen this for the first time on Epsom Downs.”
“Very true--very true, Mr Chifney. But you must excuse my feeling a little annoyed by the results of this gallop. And as for this gentleman with the beard--when he has done shaking his hands with his jockey---- Here are two five-pound notes for you, sir--the amount of my bet.”
“Keep it yourself, my Lord,” exclaimed Derrick, waving his hat round and round in frantic joy. “Or stay, if you're too proud.--Here, Jack, is a fiver for you; and here, you poor devil in the horse-cloth, here's another for you, to heal your windpipe, which, I believe, I squeezed a little too hard a while ago. If the race had gone agen me, you'd never have got a shilling of compensation, so you may thank _Manylaws_.”
The trainer's hand was clapped upon the incautious gold-digger's mouth with considerable emphasis, but it arrived too late. “The cat was out of the bag.” The tout had learned the very piece of intelligence to obtain which he had gone through so much.
Bound and bruised, and in evil plight as he was, the fellow could not help indulging in a sly chuckle, while his four enemies (for the jockeys were already in the rubbing-down house attending to their panting steeds) regarded one another with looks of blank dismay.
“You have done it now, Mr Derrick,” observed the trainer lugubriously. “We shall never get thirty to one--no, nor ten to one--against _Menelaus_ again.--Great Heaven! why, you wouldn't kill the man!”
The gold-digger had drawn a clasp-knife, half dagger, half cutting-tool, from his pocket, and was quietly feeling the point of it with his thumb. “I have done wrong,” said he, “but it is a wrong which is not without remedy. No, I am not going to murder this gentleman--at least not now; but I have something of importance to tell him.--Look you here, Mr Tout. I am not a respectable person any more than yourself, in a general way; but there is probably this difference between us--I am a man of my word. What I _say_, I will do, I always _do_ do, at all hazards. If a man robs another of his gold in the place where I come from, we shoot him: it mayn't be right, but that is the principle on which we act. You will rob me of all I have in the world if you tell what you have seen to-day; consequently, mark me, if you do tell, _I will kill you_. Of this you may be well assured. That is the only satisfaction which will be left me. You have felt my fingers, but you will in that case feel this knife. I hope I make myself well understood---- No, Master Walter, this is not your business, but a private matter between this person and myself. I want to take a good look at him, so that I may know him again anywhere; alone or in company, in England or across seas; let him be sure I shall find him out; and I want him to take a good look at me. Mine is not the face of a man who falters in his purpose, or who, having suffered a wrong, puts up with it, I think, and does not revenge himself.”