WHEN Derrick and the captain met at the breakfast-table upon that Derby morning, there was a note for the latter waiting by his plate. It had been brought over from the Turf Hotel with apologies, having been detained there by mistake, “through everybody being so busy,” for at least a week. As he turned it moodily over without opening it, Ralph saw that it had the Mirk postmark.

“You have a letter from home, I see, lad; lucky dog!”

“Yes, very lucky,” replied the young man cynically, as he ran his eye over the contents; “worse than my infernal luck of last night, and only less than the misfortune I am looking for to-day is the news in this letter.”

“How is that, lad?”

“Well, you will hear some day.”—Here he took the note, and slowly tore it lengthways into thin strips, and then across, so that it lay in a hundred fragments.—“But it's a secret, at least it was until a week ago, but being in a woman's hands, of course she let it slip;” and Master Walter looked as near to “ugly” as it was possible for his handsome face to go.

“I fancied your folks at home were unaware of your having intended to be at the Turf Hotel, and rather thought you were with your regiment, like a good boy.”

The captain returned no answer; but Derrick, who was in excellent spirits notwithstanding the anxieties of the coming day, continued to address him in that healthy and cheerful strain which is the most intolerable of all manners to one who is melancholy, and what is worse, in dread suspense. “Now, for my part, Walter, any letter in a woman's hand, as I think yours is—nay, you foolish lad, if you hadn't stuffed it into your breast-pocket so quickly, I protest I should have thought it had come from your mother or your sister. Why, you don't mean to say that that pretty little gate-keeper down at Mirk writes letters to handsome Master Walter?”

“And why not?” asked the captain defiantly. “If it had come from Mistress Forest, then, indeed, you might have taken upon yourself to object, although I understand that even there, you have not yet obtained the position of bridegroom-elect.”

“No,” returned Derrick drily. “I was about to say that I should have welcomed any letter in a woman's hand, especially if it began: 'My dearest '“——

“What the devil do you mean by looking over my letter?” exclaimed Master Walter, starting up in a fury.

“Nothing,” answered the other, purple with laughter and muffin; “I never dreamed of such a thing. But since you said it came from the gate-keeper's daughter, I thought I'd make a shot. The idea of my wanting to read all the pretty things the little fool writes to a wicked young dog like you; it's no fun to me to watch a moth at a candle. But what a spoiled lad it is! Why, here I have had no letter at all from Mirk, and yet I am content. Silence gives consent, they say; and particularly in this case, when I know nothing but your lady-mother prevents Mary writing 'My dearest Ralph' to me. Indeed, if she wrote 'Dear sir, I can have no more to do with you,' it would not have the smallest effect. What I have made up my mind to do, generally comes to pass. Where there's a will—that is, supposing it is strong enough—there is most times a way.”

“I know you're a devil of a fellow,” sneered Master Walter, rising and gazing out of window at the bustling street already astir with the Derby vehicles; “but I am afraid your will can't win me this race.”

“It's done a great deal towards it, Captain Lisgard. It brought about the trial-race with the 'crack,' although my Lord did give himself such cursed airs, and not only let you in for a good thing, but lent you the money to take advantage of it to the uttermost.”

“That's true,” said Walter frankly, and holding out his thin white hand. “I daresay you think me an ungrateful beast, but I'm worried by a matter that you know nothing of; besides”——

“Not another word, lad—not another word; I am a rude rough creature, and I said some unpleasant things myself.—Here is our Hansom, and with light-green curtains of gauze. I'm cursed if I go down to Epsom with the colours of The King on my cab. Why, the beggar must have done it to insult us.”

“Stuff and nonsense, Ralph; it's only to keep off the dust. If you have no curtains, you must wear a veil, that's all. Look there, in yonder barouche-and-four, every man has a green veil on. By Heaven! that Wobegon's one of 'em. He's got my I.O.U. for fifteen hundred pounds in his waistcoat-pocket; and there's that ugly devil Beamish, too.—Well,” muttered the captain to himself, “I'm glad I didn't go with that party, at all events.”

Master Walter, who was as popular in town as elsewhere, had been asked to take a seat for that day in half-a-dozen “drags” and barouches, but he had preferred to go alone with Derrick; not that he enjoyed his companionship, but because, as I have before said, he gathered some comfort from his society under the present cloud of anxiety and apprehension.

“I say, Walter, you are a pretty fellow; you forgot all about the provisions, but see here!” cried Derrick triumphantly, pulling a hamper from under the sofa; “a pigeon-pie, a fowl, two bottles of champagne, and one of brandy!”

“What confounded nonsense!” returned the young man peevishly. “There are dozens of parties who would have given us lunch. The idea of a hamper on the top of a Hansom!”

“Well, come, you are wrong anyway, there, lad, for I have seen a dozen going by this morning.”

“Very likely, and you have also seen plenty of vans, each with a barrel of ale. However, it's of no consequence. If the Frenchman wins, I could eat periwinkles out of a hand-barrow with a hair-pin; and if he loses—why, then, I shall not have much appetite.”

“Look here, lad,” replied Derrick gravely, “this sort of thing won't do. Never be down on your luck, until, at all events, your luck is down upon you. You are not cut out for this work, I can see. A man ought to be sanguine, yet cool; hopeful of gain—yet quite prepared for loss, who goes in for such a stake as you have got upon to-day's race. A gambler should be all brain, and no heart: let me suggest, before we start, that you should just take a little brandy.”

“No, no!” ejaculated the captain impatiently. “If I am a funk, as you so delicately hint, I am not a fool. Come, let's be off. The next, time I see this room again, I shall be a made man—or a beggar.”

To any man, who risks by betting more than he can conveniently spare, the going to the Derby is by no means a cheerful expedition, whatever his coming home may chance to be; and further, it may be observed, that of all professional persons, those who take up the Turf as their line in life, are the most sombre and unlively.

Many of them are clever fellows enough, and one or two are honest men, but there is no such thing as fun among them. The Ring would never take to the snow-balling one another, as the stock-brokers have been known to do when 'Change was dull. They have only a certain grim and cruel humour, such as the Yankees use, the point of which lies always in overreaching one another.

Derrick was right when he said that Master Walter was not fit for such a calling, but the same thing might, almost with equal force, have been said of himself. He was not, indeed, of an anxious disposition, but his temper, when once roused, was almost demoniacal, and he could never stand being cheated. Now, Cheating, in some form or other, is the soul of the turf.

Whenever it is possible to trot in that vast procession down to Epsom, the appearance of which is so gay, and the pace so funereal, the large-wheeled Hansom does it. Many a pretentious four-in-hand did the captain and Derrick pass, and many a wicked-looking brougham with its high stepping-steeds; and the occupants of each had often a word to say about “the fellow with the beard that Lisgard had picked up, and was carrying about with him everywhere.” For the manly growth that fringed Ralph Derrick's chin was something portentous, even in these days of beards, and his appearance was rendered still more striking from the fact of his wearing an infinite number of wooden dolls in the band of his hat, where Louis XI. used to stick the images of his patron saints. In vain Walter had informed him that this was a weakness only indulged in by snobs. Ralph rejoined (but not without an extra tinge of red in his weatherbeaten cheek), that being a snob himself, it was therefore only natural that he (Ralph) should take pleasure in thus adorning himself. He had rather be a snob than a nob, by a precious sight; he knew that. As for making an exhibition of himself, if that was really the case, it was only right that the public should be advertised of the matter, so he purchased a penny trumpet, and executed thereon the most discordant flourishes. “Say another word, lad,” added he, with cheerful malice, “and blessed if I don't buy a false nose!”

Walter made no further remonstrance; he leaned back in the Hansom as far he could, and as much behind the green gauze curtain, until they reached the course, when his companion divested himself of the objectionable ornaments, and made a present of a live tortoise, which he had also acquired on the way, to an importunate gipsy woman, instead of crossing her palm as requested “with a piece of silver.” They could hear by this time the hum and the roar of the great human sea which surged about the railings in front of the Grand Stand, and in a few minutes more they were within them. They pushed their way through the babbling throng towards a certain corner that had been agreed upon, and there was Mr Tite Chifney waiting for them, with a very pale face indeed.

“Nothing wrong with the horse, is there?” cried Ralph in a loud and menacing voice, which caused not a few sharp eyes to glance cunningly towards them, and set not a few sharp ears to listen to what might come next.

“No, sir, nothing,” returned the trainer. “For Heaven's sake, speak low. I never saw him looking better in my life. We will see him now, if you like.”

“Where's Blanquette?” continued Ralph, a little reassured by this, as they moved away towards the Paddock.

“Mr Blanquette is not here, Mr Derrick.”

“Not here? Why, he was to join you the day before yesterday, otherwise I would have come myself.”

“He has been here, sir, but he's gone away again?”

“What! Is he not coming back to-day?”

“I hope so, sir; I most sincerity hope so; but the fact is—now take 'it quietly, for it's none of my fault—he's gone after Jack Withers.”

In an instant, while Walter ejaculated a smothered cry of agony and wrath, Derrick had seized the trainer by the throat. “You know me, sir,” cried he. “As I swore to treat that tout on the Downs at Mirk, so will I treat you, if that jockey”——

But two blue-coated men had thrust themselves between the strong man and his victim; a gentleman in a tight-buttoned frock-coat was coming up, too, in plain clothes, with that swift determined stride peculiar to members of “the force,” and the crowd grew very thick about them, and a thousand eyes were being concentrated upon Ralph's furious face, he knew. If his temper was lost now, he felt that all was lost. With an effort that almost cost him a fit of apoplexy—“I am sorry,” said he, “that I laid my hand upon you, Mr Chifney.”

“That will do,” returned the trainer quietly, arranging his neckcloth. “Mr Inspector, you know me, and there is no occasion for your services.”

“All right, Mr Chifney, but you have got a rummish customer to deal with there,” replied the guardian of the law, stroking his chin, and looking at Derrick, much as a vice-president of the Zoological Society might regard a novelty in wild beasts, that had been half-promised to the establishment, and then withdrawn.

“I have never been treated thus,” complained the trainer, as the three moved away, and the gaping crowd gathered round some other object of attraction, “and have never deserved such treatment from any employer of mine, although I have kept racing-stables these thirty years. I can make some allowance for one who has so much money on this horse, as I know you have, Mr Derrick, but I give you my honour and word that I was as astounded as Mr Blanquette himself, when I heard the news that Jack had skedaddled. He was your own jockey, remember, not mine: no boy in my stables has ever played such a scurvy trick as this.”

“Have you any boy that can take this scoundrel's place?” asked Captain Lisgard impatiently.

“I have got as good riders as can be got, Master Walter, upon so short a notice; and Menelaus shall have the pick of them. But you know what a devil of a temper the horse has; and this Withers was the only lad who understood him.”

“How comes it that Blanquette has gone to look for him?” asked Derrick thoughtfully. “Does he know where he is likely to be found?”

“Not as I know of, sir,” returned the trainer gravely, “He said he would bring him back Dead or Alive—those were his words.”

“Stop a moment, Chifney,” ejaculated Ralph. “I can scarcely find breath to utter even the suspicion of it; and the certainty would, I verily believe, choke me; but do you think it possible that all is not quite on the square with Blanquette himself?”

“Well, Mr Derrick, I'd rather not say. Mr Blanquette is as much the owner of the horse as yourself. He's my employer too—and nobody ever heard Tite Chifney breathe a word”——

“Thousand devils!” cried Derrick, stamping his foot so that the print of it was left in the yielding turf; “is this a time for your senseless scruples? I ask you, do you think it possible that this man—my pal for years, one that has oftentimes faced death in my company, and once shared the last scanty meal that stood between us and starvation—do you think it possible, I say, that this man has sold the race?”

“Well, sir,” replied Mr Chifney frankly, “about victuals eaten under the circumstances you describe, of course I'm no judge; but as to friendship and that, I've known a son play his own father false upon the turf before now; and what an Englishman will do in the way of smartness, you may take your oath a Frenchman will do—and a deuced sight worse too. Moreover, since you press this question, I may say that your partner has been seen talking with Wiley—Lord Stonart's agent—more than once.”

“And why, in the devil's name, was I not told?”

“That was not my business, Mr Derrick; you might not have thanked me for interfering with your affairs. I thought that you and Mr Blanquette were one. Besides, to confess the truth, I thought it was The King who was being nobbled. And since Lord Stonart has chosen to withdraw his horses from my keeping—chiefly, by the by, through his disgust at that trial-race in which his crack was beaten—I, of course, was no longer bound to look after his interests; no, indeed, quite the reverse,” added the trainer with an offended air.

“Did this Frenchman say he would be here to-day, if he did not find the boy?” inquired Captain Lisgard sharply, with an unpleasant look in his fine eyes.

“I can answer that question for him,” returned the gold-digger grimly. “If he has played me false, he will not only not be here; he will have put the sea—and not the narrow one either—between himself and Ralph Derrick; for he knows me very well. But now”—here he drew a long breath, and made a motion with his mighty arms as though he would dismiss that matter for the present, tempting as it was to dwell upon—“let us see the boy that is to take this rascal's place. We may pull through still with luck.”