Best Short Stories - [34]

Oscar Cresswell got it all from Bassett.

‘Master Paul comes and asks me, so I can’t do more than tell him, sir,’ said Bassett, his face terribly serious, as if he were speaking of religious matters.

‘And does he ever put anything on a horse he fancies?’

‘Well — I don’t want to give him away — he’s a young sport, a fine sport, sir. Would you mind asking him himself? He sort of takes a pleasure in it, and perhaps he’d feel I was giving him away, sir, if you don’t mind.’

Bassett was serious as a church.

The uncle went back to his nephew, and took him off for a ride in the car.

‘Say, Paul, old man, do you ever put anything on a horse?’ the uncle asked.

The boy watched the handsome man closely.

‘Why, do you think I oughtn’t to?’ he parried.

‘Not a bit of it! I thought perhaps you might give me a tip for the Lincoln.[51]’

The car sped on into the country, going down to Uncle Oscar’s place in Hampshire.[52]

‘Honour bright?’ said the nephew.

‘Honour bright, son!’ said the uncle.

‘Well, then, Daffodil.’

‘Daffodil! I doubt it, sonny. What about Mirza?’

‘I only know the winner,’ said the boy. ‘That’s Daffodil!’

‘Daffodil, eh?’ There was a pause. Daffodil was an obscure horse comparatively.

‘Uncle!’

‘Yes, son?’

‘You won’t let it go any further, will you? I promised Bassett’

‘Bassett be damned, old man! What’s he got to do with it?’

‘We’re partners! We’ve been partners from the first! Uncle, he lent me my first five shillings, which I lost. I promised him, honour bright, it was only between me and him: only you gave me that ten-shilling note I started winning with, so I thought you were lucky. You won’t let it go any further, will you?’

The boy gazed at his uncle from those big, hot, blue eyes, set rather close together. The uncle stirred and laughed uneasily.

‘Right you are, son! I’ll keep your tip private. Daffodil, eh! How much are you putting on him?’

‘All except twenty pounds,’ said the boy. ‘I keep that in reserve.’

The uncle thought it a good joke.

‘You keep twenty pounds in reserve, do you, you young romancer? What are you betting, then?’

‘I’m betting three hundred,’ said the boy gravely. ‘But it’s between you and me, Uncle Oscar! Honour bright?’

The uncle burst into a roar of laughter.

‘It’s between you and me all right, you young Nat Gould,’ he said, laughing. ‘But where’s your three hundred?’

‘Bassett keeps it for me. We’re partners.’

‘You are, are you! And what is Bassett putting on Daffodil?’

‘He won’t go quite as high as I do, I expect. Perhaps he’ll go a hundred and fifty.’

‘What, pennies?’ laughed the uncle.

‘Pounds,’ said the child, with a surprised look at his uncle. ‘Bassett keeps a bigger reserve than I do.’

Between wonder and amusement, Uncle Oscar was silent. He pursued the matter no further, but he determined to take his nephew with him to the Lincoln races.

‘Now, son,’ he said, ‘I’m putting twenty on Mirza, and I’ll put five for you on any horse you fancy. What’s your pick?’

‘Daffodil, uncle!’

‘No, not the fiver on Daffodil!’

‘I should if it was my own fiver,’ said the child.

‘Good! Good! Right you are! A fiver for me and a fiver for you on Daffodil.’

The child had never been to a race-meeting before, and his eyes were blue fire. He pursed his mouth tight, and watched. A Frenchman just in front had put his money on Lancelot. Wild with excitement, he flayed his arms up and down, yelling ‘Lancelot! Lancelot!’ in his French accent.

Daffodil came in first, Lancelot second, Mirza third. The child, flushed and with eyes blazing, was curiously serene. His uncle brought him five five-pound notes: four to one.

‘What am I to do with these?’ he cried, waving them before the boy’s eyes.

‘I suppose we’ll talk to Bassett,’ said the boy. ‘I expect I have fifteen hundred now: and twenty in reserve: and this twenty.’

His uncle studied him for some moments.

‘Look here, son!’ he said. ‘You’re not serious about Bassett and that fifteen hundred, are you?’

‘Yes, I am. But it’s between you and me, uncle! Honour bright!’

‘Honour bright all right, son! But I must talk to Bassett.’

‘If you’d like to be a partner, uncle, with Bassett and me, we could all be partners. Only you’d have to promise, honour bright, uncle, not to let it go beyond us three. Bassett and I are lucky, and you must be lucky, because it was your ten shillings I started winning with…’

Uncle Oscar took both Bassett and Paul into Richmond Park[53] for an afternoon, and there they talked.

‘It’s like this, you see, sir,’ Bassett said. ‘Master Paul would get me talking about racing events, spinning yarns, you know, sir. And he was always keen on knowing if I’d made or if I’d lost. It’s about a year since, now, that I put five shillings on Blush of Dawn for him: and we lost. Then the luck turned, with that ten shillings he had from you: that we put on Singhalese. And since that time, it’s been pretty steady, all things considering. What do you say, Master Paul?’

‘We’re all right when we’re sure,’ said Paul. ‘It’s when we’re not quite sure that we go down.’

‘Oh, but we’re careful then,’ said Bassett.

‘But when are you