TAKING A HINT
NO man alive subscribed more heartily than did the Honourable Crasher to
Mr. Sheridan’s aphorism, that “If the early bird catches the worm, what
a fool must the worm be to get up earlier than the bird!” It was always
a matter of great difficulty to get the Honourable out of bed, and not
to be managed without considerable diplomacy. The stud-groom and valet
laid their heads together for this purpose with laudable ingenuity, the
former entertaining a professional regard for the hack’s legs, the
latter being much averse to the idea of a hurried toilet. He liked to
turn the Honourable out as a gentleman should be dressed, resplendent in
scarlet, and with faultless boots and breeches. In his own opinion,
proper justice could not be done to the garments he had prepared, under
an hour and a quarter; and when the place of meeting was a dozen miles
off, and the church clock chiming half-past nine found his master still
in bed, the valet might be seen pervading the passages with tears in his
eyes. The _ruse_ he found most efficacious was to tap at the door soon
after eight, and say it was near ten. The Honourable’s watch was pretty
sure to have been left downstairs, or, if in his bedroom, to have
stopped, unwound; and often as the trick had succeeded, Crasher never
seemed yet to have found it out. Even if he rose in time, however, he
was a sad dawdle. There were letters to be read, and sometimes answered.
He would breakfast in a gorgeous dressing-gown, and smoke a cigar over a
French novel afterwards, never dreaming of getting into his hunting
things till he ought to have been more than halfway to covert.
Sometimes, and this was the sorest grievance of all, he would take a
fancy not to hunt, and then changing his mind at the last moment, order
round one of the unfortunate hacks, and go off like a flash of
lightning.
On the morning to which I have already alluded, Mr. Tiptop, cleaned,
breakfasted, and considerably freshened up, having completely recovered
the effects of his early gallop, seen everything set straight about the
stable, and dispatched two of his master’s horses to Shearsby Inn, was
vainly waiting for an audience at the Honourable’s bedroom door about
ten A.M.
The valet, a staid elderly man, who, as Mr. Tiptop would have said, made
a point of “standing in” with all the upper servants, treated the
stud-groom with considerable deference. They had exhausted their usual
topic of the weather, the probability of sport, and their master’s
propensities for repose, and were now beguiling the time by listening at
his chamber door alternately, till the welcome sound of much splashing
and hard breathing announced that the Honourable had tumbled out of bed
into his tub.
After awhile the valet gave a low tap at the door, accompanied by a
cough.
“Who’s there?” said the inmate of the chamber, sedulously drying his
elegant proportions before an enormous fire.
“Beg your pardon, sir,” answered the well-drilled servant. “Mr. Tiptop,
sir, wishes to speak to you, sir.”
“Tell him to go to the devil,” rejoined the Honourable, struggling
leisurely into a clean shirt.
There was no occasion for the polite valet to repeat this message,
inasmuch as Mr. Tiptop was there to hear it for himself. The servants
looked at each other, and laughed in their sleeve.
Presently, the valet, who knew to a second how long each stage of the
toilet ought to last, knocked again.
“What is it?” murmured the Honourable very indistinctly, for the
sufficient reason that he was sedulously brushing his teeth.
“Mr. Tiptop, sir, wishes to know if he can see you before you go down to
breakfast.”
The stud-groom was well aware that no confidential communication could
take place during that meal, disturbed as it usually was by the arrival
of other late starters, dropping in, to hurry their friend.
“Come in,” gurgled the Honourable: and his stud-groom made his
appearance, smoothing his shiny head as all grooms do.
“What’s the matter, Tiptop?” inquired his master, poising the
tooth-brush between finger and thumb. “Are all the horses lame?”
“Not so bad as that, sir,” answered Tiptop, respectfully, revolving in
his mind how he should begin what he had to say. For all his languor,
there was something about Crasher that made people very loath to take a
liberty. “I only wanted to tell you, sir, of a horse I’ve seen as you
ought to buy. I thought I’d make bold to tell you before any of the
other gentlemen got word of him. He’s a flyer, sir—that’s what he is!”
Now, in all matters relating to the stable, Mr. Tiptop ruled paramount,
the Honourable’s system being to make his groom look out for horses, and
if he liked their appearance himself, to buy them at once. With regard
to riding, I have already said, he could make them all go, if they had
any pretensions to hunters about them.
“Whose is he?” was the next question asked; for the Honourable was now
finishing his toilet in such a hurry as would have made you suppose he
never was late in his life.
“Mr. Sawyer’s, sir,” answered Tiptop. “It’s the bay. He’ll be on him
to-day at Barkby Holt.”
“Very well,” answered the Honourable, buttoning on a watch-chain, with
half-a-dozen lockets attached, as he emerged from his room. “Tell Smiles
to get breakfast _directly_, and send the hack round in ten minutes!”
Mr. Tiptop looked after him admiringly, as he clanked downstairs. “He
means _business_ this morning,” thought the groom, “and I’ll lay a new
hat he buys the bay horse!”
Now if Mr. Tiptop had felt he had the best of the morning trial, it had
been his intention to pull his horse back, and gammon his friend Isaac
that he was beat, with the laudable determination to get the better of
that worthy, as well as of the general public, by making good use of his
knowledge previous to the race. When, however, he found that her
antagonist had the heels of Chance, whom he had already tried with the
other grooms to be quite the best in the town, he altered his tactics
altogether. Obviously they ought to have both the flyers in the same
stable; and it would be wiser to stand in with Isaac, and make the old
groom a sharer in the profits, as he was already in the information
which their early rising had enabled them to obtain. Mr. Tiptop forgot
that it is as dark before dawn as it is after nightfall. He might,
perhaps, have been farther enlightened, had he, instead of waiting at
his master’s door till the Honourable’s teeth had been polished to the
required degree of whiteness, been able to assist at an interview which
took place at the same hour between Isaac and his master, in a room
where the latter had just finished breakfast.
The old groom made no apology for entering; as was his custom, he
plunged at once _in medias res_.
“I’ve sent _two_ out for you to-day,” said he, marching up to Mr.
Sawyer’s chair, and confronting him with a grin, such as might be cut
out of mahogany.
“And left _one_ in the stable! you old idiot!” exclaimed the indignant
Mr. Sawyer. “What the deuce have you done that for?”
“You’ll want a second horse to-day,” answered the groom. “You’ll have a
bid for Marathon before you’ve been on him half an hour. Leastways, if
you’ve the discretion not to go a-showing of him up.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mr. Sawyer, with a dawning of intelligence
overspreading his countenance, for he knew his servant’s diplomatic
talents of old.
“Only that they’re all of ’em wanting a nag to win this here
donkey-race, as I call it; for none but a donkey would be concerned in
such a tomfoolery; and Mr. Crasher, he’s satisfied by this time that
Marathon’s the one as just _can_. You sit still upon him to-day, and
keep jogging of him about, to _qualify_ like, till the hounds find, and
then open your mouth, and take what they offer you.”
Mr. Sawyer had implicit confidence in his old servant; still he could
not help wishing to be further enlightened.
“You must have told some precious yarns,” said he, “to make people
believe Marathon could _run up_ with a man in mud-boots!”
“I never said a word!” answered Isaac; “people may believe their own
eyes. Mr. Tiptop and I, we tried ’un this very morning again Chance; and
though she’s the best in the town, we beat her by more than a length.”
“Marathon beat that mare!” exclaimed Mr. Sawyer, now completely taken
aback. “What _do_ you mean?”
Old Isaac’s features were distorted once more into the mahogany grin.
“Well, if Marathon didn’t, Jack did,” said he quietly. “You couldn’t
tell one from the other in their clothing when it’s dark, and the Dandy
would win the Derby if it wasn’t over half-a-mile.”
It was too true: though the smart little nag never could stay a mile at
a racing pace in his best days, he was as quick on his legs as a rabbit,
and nothing could touch him, for five furlongs. Swaddled up in his
clothes under the dubious twilight of a winter’s morning, Mr. Tiptop
never suspected him, and went home with the conviction that Marathon,
and none other, was the horse that had beaten his favourite.
Mr. Sawyer laughed to himself as he rode Jack very gingerly on to
Barkby.
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