THE DEAL, AND THE DISASTER
If people are inclined to deal, bargains can very soon be struck at idle
watering-places, where anything in the shape of occupation is a godsend,
and bargainers know where to find each other in a minute. Everybody knows
where everybody is.
'Have you seen Jack Sprat?'
'Oh yes; he's just gone into Muddle's Bazaar with Miss Flouncey, looking
uncommon sweet.' Or--
'Can you tell me where I shall find Mr. Slowman?'
Answer.--'You'll find him at his lodgings, No. 15, Belvidere Terrace, till
a quarter before seven. He's gone home to dress, to dine with Major and
Mrs. Holdsworthy, at Grunton Villa, for I heard him order Jenkins's fly at
that time.'
Caingey Thornton knew exactly when he would find Mr. Waffles at Miss
Lollypop's, the confectioner, eating ices and making love to that very
interesting much-courted young lady. True to his time, there was Waffles,
eating and eyeing the cherry-coloured ribbons, floating in graceful curls
along with her raven-coloured ringlets, down Miss Lollypop's nice fresh
plump cheeks.
After expatiating on the great merits of the horse, and the certainty of
getting all the money back by steeple-chasing him in the spring, and
stating his conviction that Mr. Sponge would not take any part of the
purchase-money in pictures or jewellery, or anything of that sort, Mr.
Waffles gave his consent to deal, on the terms the following conversation
shows.
'My friend will give you your price, if you wouldn't mind taking his cheque
and keeping it for a few months till he's into funds,' observed Mr.
Thornton, who now sought Mr. Sponge out at the billiard-room.
'Why,' observed Mr. Sponge, thoughtfully, 'you know horses are always ready
money.'
'True,' replied Thornton; 'at least that's the theory of the thing; only
my friend is rather peculiarly situated at present.'
'I suppose Mr. Waffles is your man?' observed Mr. Sponge, rightly judging
that there couldn't be two such flats in the place.
'Just so,' said Mr. Thornton.
[Illustration: MR. WAFFLES AT MISS LOLLYPOP'S]
'I'd rather take his "stiff" than his cheque,' observed Mr. Sponge, after a
pause. 'I could get a bit of stiff _done_, but a cheque, you
see--especially a post-dated one--is always objected to.'
'Well, I dare say that will make no difference,' observed Mr. Thornton,
'"stiff," if you prefer it--say three months; or perhaps you'll give us
four?'
'Three's long enough, in all conscience,' replied Mr. Sponge, with a shake
of the head, adding, 'Bullfrog made me pay down on the nail.'
'Well, so be it, then,' assented Mr. Thornton; 'you draw at three months,
and Mr. Waffles will accept, payable at Coutts's.'
After so much liberality, Mr. Caingey expected that Mr. Sponge would have
hinted at something handsome for him; but all Sponge said was, 'So be it,'
too, as he walked away to buy a bill-stamp.
Mr. Waffles was more considerate, and promised him the first mount on his
new purchase, though Caingey would rather have had a ten, or even a
five-pound note.
Towards the hour of ten on that eventful day, numerous gaitered, trousered,
and jacketed grooms began to ride up and down the High Street, most of them
with their stirrups crossed negligently on the pommels of the saddles, to
indicate that their masters were going to ride the horses, and not them.
The street grew lively, not so much with people going to hunt, as with
people coming to see those who were. Tattered Hibernians, with rags on
their backs and jokes on their lips; young English _chevaliers
d'industrie_, with their hands ready to dive into anybody's pockets but
their own; stablemen out of place, servants loitering on their errands,
striplings helping them, ladies'-maids with novels or three-corner'd notes,
and a good crop of beggars.
'What, Spareneck, do you ride the grey to-day? I thought you'd done
Gooseman out of a mount,' observed Ensign Downley, as a line of
scarlet-coated youths hung over the balcony of the Imperial Hotel, after
breakfast and before mounting for the day.
Spareneck.--'No, that's for Tuesday. He wouldn't stand one to-day. What do
you ride?'
Downley.--'Oh, I've a hack, one of Screwman's, Perpetual Motion they call
him, because he never gets any rest. That's him, I believe, with the
lofty-actioned hind-legs,' added he, pointing to a weedy string-halty bay
passing below, high in bone and low in flesh.
'Who's o' the gaudy chestnut?' asked Caingey Thornton, who now appeared,
wiping his fat lips after his second glass of _eau de vie_.
'That's Mr. Sponge's,' replied Spareneck in a low tone, knowing how soon a
man catches his own name.
'A deuced fine horse he is, too,' observed Caingey, in a louder key;
adding, 'Sponge has the finest lot of horses of any man in England--in the
world, I may say.'
Mr. Sponge himself now rose from the breakfast table, and was speedily
followed by Mr. Waffles and the rest of the party, some bearing
sofa-pillows and cushions to place on the balustrades, to loll at their
ease, in imitation of the Coventry Club swells in Piccadilly. Then our
friends smoked their cigars, reviewed the cavalry, and criticised the
ladies who passed below in the flys on their way to the meet.
'Come, old Bolter!' exclaimed one, 'here's Miss Bussington coming to look
after you--got her mamma with her, too--so you may as well knock under at
once, for she's determined to have you.'
'A devil of a woman the old un is, too,' observed Ensign Downley; 'she
nearly frightened Jack Simpers of ours into fits, by asking what he meant
after dancing three dances with her daughter one night.'
'My word, but Miss Jumpheavy must expect to do some execution to-day with
that fine floating feather and her crimson satin dress and ermine,'
observed Mr. Waffles, as that estimable lady drove past in her Victoria
phaeton. 'She looks like the Queen of Sheba herself. But come, I suppose,'
he added, taking a most diminutive Geneva watch out of his
waistcoat-pocket, 'we should be going. See! there's your nag kicking up a
shindy,' he said to Caingey Thornton, as the redoubtable brown was led down
the street by a jean-jacketed groom, kicking and lashing out at everything
he came near.
'I'll kick him,' observed Thornton, retiring from the balcony to the
brandy-bottle, and helping himself to a pretty good-sized glass. He then
extricated his large cutting whip from the confusion of whips with which
it was mixed, and clonk, clonk, clonked downstairs to the door.
'Multum in Parvo' stopped the doorway, across whose shoulder Leather passed
the following hints, in a low tone of voice, to Mr. Sponge, as the latter
stood drawing on his dogskin gloves, the observed, as he flattered himself,
of all observers.
'Mind now,' said Leather, 'this oss as a will of his own; though he seems
so quiet like, he's not always to be depended on; so be on the look-out for
squalls.'
Sponge, having had a glass of brandy, just mounted with the air of a man
thoroughly at home with his horse, and drawing the rein, with a slight feel
of the spur, passed on from the door to make way for the redoubtable
Hercules. Hercules was evidently not in a good humour. His ears were laid
back, and the rolling white eye showed mischief. Sponge saw all this, and
turned to see whether Thornton's clumsy, wash-ball seat, would be able to
control the fractious spirit of the horse.
'Whoay!' roared Thornton, as his first dive at the stirrup missed, and was
answered by a hearty kick out from the horse, the 'whoay' being given in a
very different tone to the gentle, coaxing style of Mr. Buckram and his
men. Had it not been for the brandy within and the lookers-on without,
there is no saying but Caingey would have declined the horse's further
acquaintance. As it was, he quickly repeated his attempt at the stirrup
with the same sort of domineering 'whoay,' adding, as he landed in the
saddle and snatched at the reins, 'Do you think I stole you?'
Whatever the horse's opinion might be on that point, he didn't seem to care
to express it, for finding kicking alone wouldn't do, he immediately
commenced rearing too, and by a desperate plunge, broke away from the
groom, before Thornton had either got him by the head or his feet in the
stirrups. Three most desperate bounds he gave, rising at the bit as though
he would come back over if the hold was not relaxed, and the fourth effort
bringing him to the opposite kerb-stone, he up again with such a bound and
impetus that he crashed right through Messrs. Frippery and Flummery's fine
plate-glass window, to the terror and astonishment of their elegant young
counter-skippers, who were busy arranging their ribbons and finery for the
day. Right through the window Hercules went, switching through book muslins
and bareges as he would through a bullfinch, and attempting to make his
exit by a large plate-glass mirror against the wall of the cloak-room
beyond, which he dashed all to pieces with his head. Worse remains to be
told. 'Multum in Parvo,' seeing his old comrade's hind-quarters
disappearing through the window, just took the bit between his teeth, and
followed, in spite of Mr. Sponge's every effort to turn him; and when at
length he got him hauled round, the horse was found to have decorated
himself with a sky-blue _visite_ trimmed with Honiton lace, which he wore
like a charger on his way to the Crusades, or a steed bearing a knight to
the Eglinton tournament.
Quick as it happened, and soon as it was over, all Laverick Wells seemed to
have congregated in the street as our heroes rode out of the folding
glass-doors.
[Illustration]