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"No, I don't, sir!" he answered dryly. Mr. Smivvle felt for his whisker, found it, and smiled. "Quite so, my Lord, I am but one of the concourse the multitude the ah the herd, though, mark me, my Lord, a Smivvle, sir, a Smivvle, every inch of me, while you are the owner of 'Moonraker, and Moonraker's the word just now, I hear. But, sir, I have a friend "
The horses couldn't look better, Bev. Egad! I believe they know to-day is the day! There's your 'Terror' pawing and fidgeting, and 'Moonraker' stamping and quivering " "But how is your arm, Dick?" "Arm?" said the Viscount innocently. "Oh, ah, to be sure, thanks, couldn't be better, considering." "Are you quite sure?" persisted Barnabas, aware of the Viscount's haggard cheek and feverish eye.
"Talking about the horses, Bev," said the Viscount, sitting up in bed and speaking rather hurriedly, "I protest, since the rascally attempt on 'Moonraker' last night, I've been on pins and needles, positively, nerve quite gone, y'know, Bev. If 'Moonraker' didn't happen to be a horse, he'd be a mare, of course he would, but I mean a nightmare.
But now something is wrong in front, there is a warning yell from the Marquis up flashes the Captain's long arm, for "Moonraker" has swerved suddenly, unaccountably, loses his stride, and falls back until he is neck and neck with "The Terror."
"Oh, I know all about your little affair with him across the table. Gad, Beverley, what a perfectly reckless fellow you are!" "But how do you know of this?" "From Clemency." "So you've seen her again, Dick?" "Yes, of course; that is, I took 'Moonraker' for a gallop yesterday, and happened to be that way." "Ah!" said Barnabas.
"Moonraker" leaps forward, lengthens his stride, and away he goes fast and furious, filling the air with flying clods, on and on, is level with Tressider, is past, and galloping neck and neck with the Marquis. Onward sweeps the race, over fallow and plough, over hedge and ditch and fence, until, afar off, Barnabas sees again the gleam of water a jump full thirty feet across.
But now shouts are heard, and vicious cries, as several horses, refusing, swerve violently; there is a crash! a muffled cry some one is down. Then, as Barnabas watches, anxious-eyed, mindful of the Viscount's injured arm "Moonraker" shoots forward and has cleared it gallantly.
"Oh, you dream-child, you moonraker, what are you doing in a world where men work for their pleasures and women have to cringe for the scraps? What was I to do when Porfirio shut me out of doors, and you you, who had caused it, refused to come with me? Was I to spread my wings and fly straight into the lap of the Madonna? You would say so, I suppose!
Even that other and greater world, which is neither fashionable nor polite, being too busy gaining the wherewithal to exist, even in fetid lanes and teeming streets, in dingy offices and dingier places still, the same excitement prevailed; busy men forgot their business awhile; crouching clerks straightened their stooping backs, became for the nonce fabulously rich, and airily bet each other vast sums that Carnaby's "Clasher" would do it in a canter, that Viscount Devenham's "Moonraker" would have it in a walk-over, that the Marquis of Jerningham's "Clinker" would leave the field nowhere, and that Captain Slingsby's "Rascal" would run away with it.
Shall have to get rid of my stable, and the coach; 'Moonraker' must go, too, I'm afraid. Yes, Bev," sighed the Viscount, shaking his head at the reflection of his elegant person in the mirror, "you behold in me a beggar, and the cause Clemency. But then, I know I am the very happiest beggar in all this wide world, and the cause Clemency!"
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