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He brought together his hands. "Was it just a 'little bit' when at Homburg you danced with me nearly every time at the grand duchess' ball? Sapristi! I have not forgotten. Was it only a 'little bit' when you let me ride with you at Pau those wild steeplechases! or permitted me to follow you to Madrid, Nice, elsewhere? wherever caprice took you?" "I asked you not to "
He talked on gaily, in no way depressed by his unsympathetic audience, telling tales of his own escapades in the matter of fighting and love-making, of wild midnight steeplechases ridden across unknown country, and the delights of the fair town by the river Lee.
It would have been well for him if he had only been seen thus, with the marks of honest toil about him; but Martin Blake was too often to be seen at the 'Crown, and often in a state that anyone who loved him would have grieved to see; and he was always to be found at any race meetings and steeplechases and fairs in the neighbourhood, and, report said, was by no means choice in his company.
The invalids who frequented the Baths must have enjoyed a lively 'cure, for besides theatrical performances, illuminations, fireworks and steeplechases, the Graf was always ready to oblige with some sensational achievement.
To him the world was a field to be sown with the seed of the Kingdom, and opportunities were eagerly embraced for widely disseminating the truth. Tracts were liberally used, given away in large quantities at open-air services, fairs, races and steeplechases, and among spectators at public executions, or among passengers on board ships and railway trains, and by the way.
Everything is so bad at this d d club, no wonder, when a troop of boys are let in! Enough to spoil any club; don't know Larose from Lafitte! Waiter!" Meanwhile, the talk round the table at which sat Percival St. John was animated, lively, and various, the talk common with young idlers; of horses, and steeplechases, and opera-dancers, and reigning beauties, and good-humoured jests at each other.
"I didn't observe," said John; "but whatever horse he's on, he always rides rashly." Arthur was mounted on a long, raking thorough-bred black animal, which he had bought himself about a month ago, and which, having been run at steeplechases, rushed at every fence as though he were going to swallow it.
There are no recognized steeplechases, but generally one or two events at each meeting are reserved for gentlemen riders, and private matches are sometimes arranged. In 1888 the commandant at Buitenzorg offered a prize for a cross-country race for the purpose of encouraging riding among the officers. The event, however, was won by an English planter.
In all this babble there was a freshness about Percival St. John's conversation which showed that, as yet, for him life had the zest of novelty. He was more at home about horses and steeplechases than about opera-dancers and beauties and the small scandals of town. Talk on these latter topics did not seem to interest him, on the contrary, almost to pain.
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