“Missed it,” said Bigsby. “I thought so. We needn’t hurry now; there’s half an hour before the Stakes.”
They strolled on easily, and presently reached the open part of the course. Mr. Potter threaded the struggling crowd at the heels of Bigsby, who rescued him twice from betting on a certainty in a game of three cards played on the top of an opened umbrella. Presently they arrived at a row of strikingly-dressed and rather noisy gentlemen, each with his satchel hanging before him.
“Fiver one — there y’are, elevener two Bluestar!” shouted the first, aggressively, at Bigsby.
“Magpie,” answered Bigsby. “What price?”
“Full Magpie,” replied the shouter, hastily turning to Mr. Potter. “‘Ere, ‘levener two Bluestar or Chadwick!”
They moved on to the next of the row — a very hoarse man with a Union Jack round his hat.
“‘Leven to two,” bayed this patriot; “‘leven to two bar one!”
“Evens Magpie?” queried Bigsby.
“Bar Magpie; ‘leven to two Chadwick or Bluestar, tenner one anything else.”
“Odds on Magpie?” persevered Bigsby.
“No Magpie— ‘ere, give someone else a chance. ‘Levener two! ‘Levener two, bar one!”
From number two in the row they went to number three, thence to number four, and so all down the line, with the same result each time. It was no good. There was no betting on this certainty, and the bottom had fallen out of Mr. Potter’s new world. The Turf was a disappointment — a gigantic engine of national demoralization.
Bigsby stood for a moment at the end of the line and considered. Then he said: —
“You stay just here while I run over to the enclosure; perhaps I can do it there.”
Mr. Potter took his stand at the end of the line of bookmakers and began to look about him. Presently a man in the crowd, taking a look at him and another at his satchel, came up and said: —
“Do you want to lay?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Potter, eagerly. “I do — very much.”
“Magpie?”
“Certainly.”
“Make it evens?”
“Yes, evens.”
“Right — a quid,” said the man, promptly producing a sovereign and thrusting it into Mr. Potter’s hand.
All Mr. Potter’s disgust at the state of the Turf vanished on the spot. This was extraordinary — this touching confidence of a perfect stranger. He hadn’t expected it. Not only was this sterling sportsman ready to bet against a certainty, but he recognized the certainty and paid the money over beforehand. Never again would Mr. Potter suffer a word against the frequenters of race-meetings.
“Got a ticket?” asked the man.
“A ticket?” repeated Potter. “No.”
“Well, you ain’t put it down.”
“Oh, I sha’n’t forget,” protested Potter; and then bethought him that some acknowledgment of this gentleman’s confiding faith was only proper. So he dived into his pocket and produced a large card headed “S. POTTER, CHEESEMONGER AND PROVISION MERCHANT,” with his address below, and little ornamental remarks, about supplying families and respectfully soliciting orders, scattered round.
“All right,” said the sportsman, making a note on the back of the card and holding it up. “Magpie a quid.”
But now Mr. Potter was confronted by a large, staring man wearing horse-cloth tweeds and waving enormous grey Dundreary whiskers. He had overheard the transaction, and now thrust forward a sovereign of his own with an aggressive drive of an enormous hand.
“Magpie, evens,” said the apparition; and at that moment two other bystanders took up the cry and pushed before him with money extended in their hands.
Mr. Potter found himself the centre of a small but very eager crowd, who thrust money on him from every side. Bigsby would seem to be a duffer, after all. If he had stayed he might have shared this overwhelming tide of luck. In the midst of it Mr. Potter received a shock; for he looked in the face of one of his eager customers and saw Cripps the greengrocer. Cripps was startled, too; but he handed over his money, a little shamefacedly, and was succeeded, of all marvels, by Dodson the draper! Dodson stopped, coughed, stuffed his hand back into his pocket, and nodded uneasily; then he mumbled vaguely about the fine afternoon and turned away. He was trying to look as though he had come that way by accident.
Mr. Potter was surprised at the behaviour of his fellow-townsman, and more when he perceived Hopkins, the undertaker, hovering undecidedly at the edge of the crowd. And then there burst through the press, with two half-crowns extended in his hand — his own shopman!
There was a horrid gasp of mutual recognition, and the wretched hireling turned tail and ran — no doubt in the direction of his grandmother’s grave. And then appeared through the press the amazed face of Bigsby; and with that there was a shout of “They’re off!” and everybody scrambled for a place to see the race.
Bigsby shouldered the triumphing Potter aside and demanded, “What’s all this? What have you been up to?”
“Laying,” replied his friend, jubilantly. “Quite a lot of people wanted to bet against Magpie, after all.”
“Laying! G’law! Do you know what you’ve done? D’you know what laying means?”
“Yes, betting, of course. I’ve been laying Magpie with all this lot, and they’ve paid their money in advance.”
“My wig, you’ve done it!” gasped Bigsby, his eyes protruding like those of a lobster. “Laying is betting against, you blithering chump! Those bookies are layers! All this crowd have been backing Magpie, and you’ll have to pay ‘em!”
Everything inside Mr. Potter from his chin downwards seemed to turn over and fall into bottomless space. He gasped and stammered incoherently, and Bigsby heard what he said better than he heard himself.
“Explain!” cried Bigsby, in reply. “I think I see you explaining to this crowd when they want their money! Can you pay ‘em? Because you’re in the soup if you can’t, my hearty! Halloa! Now they’re off!” And he took what space he could get on the side of a hillock to watch.
There had been a false start, but now the race was really begun. There was a roar of shouting, and then a clamour of cries. “Magpie! Magpie all the way! He’s coming out a’ready! Magpie!”
Mr. Potter stared wildly about him. The situation was terrible — desperate; and he had about two minutes to decide how to meet it. Of course, he would have to pay — but how? The money he had brought with him would be short by forty — fifty — sixty pounds or more. And his nearest resource was the bank at Mugby!
There was nothing else for it. Either he must be torn to pieces by the infuriated populace or they must wait till he could fetch the money. Now was the only chance; and in fifteen seconds from the start of the race for the Mugby Stakes Mr. Potter was legging it away from the course at the uttermost pace he could tear.
For a moment he was unnoticed, for the race drew every eye. Then somebody turned with a shout, and in an instant there was a cry of “Welsher!” from a score of throats. Bigsby turned too, and gasped with horror to see one of his best customers eloping with the money of confiding strangers.
The confiding strangers went after Mr. Potter in a crowd. Cripps the greengrocer, gazing on the scene, was surprised and scandalized, but resolved to call on Potter in the morning rather than interfere. As for Hopkins the undertaker and Dodson the draper, they experienced a virtuous satisfaction. They had not been betting; and they were able to contemplate the utter downfall of their erring townsman with self-approval and no pecuniary loss. Even Mr. Potter’s shopman, had the scene been visible from his grandmother’s grave, might have found occasion for a little self-righteousness on his own account.
But the hunted cheesemonger guessed nothing of this, having urgent business of his own. He scampered madly ahead, with the angry yells of his pursuers ringing in ears, and saw nothing of the last and only service Bigsby was able to render him. For the man of tallow followed with the crowd, and, selecting what s
eemed to be the speediest among the pursuers, contrived to blunder against him so that they both came down in a sprawl together.
The heavy yellow coat and the flopping satchel sadly incommoded the flying Potter. The coat was buttoned, and he could hardly drop it without stopping; but the satchel was different. He snatched at the strap and flung it over his head, and the act saved him. For the hungry pursuers, seeing him thus apparently abandon his plunder, flung themselves on the satchel in a struggling heap. In a tornado of snatching, grabbing, and scrambling, the scrummage failed at first to realize that the tumbling sandwiches came from the satchel, and they tore and dragged it this way and that, while the innocent welsher pegged away breathlessly a field and a half off.
But he did not get wholly clear. He was making his best for a path behind a hedge when he was suddenly aware of a fearful apparition approaching from another part of the course — the staring man in the horse-blanket clothes, who came bounding with appalling strides, and whiskers flickering in the breeze like the wings of an avenging angel, to cut him off.
Mr. Potter was leaving the rest, but this ogre was inevitable. His arms swung like sails on a windmill and his legs seemed to take a field in two leaps.
“Two pun’ — two pun’!” he roared, as he came nearer, shaking a fist like a loaf and spreading a palm like a malt-shovel.
Mr. Potter steadied his run and plunged his hand into the mass of coins in his pocket. This debt, at any rate, he could pay on the spot — and he’d got to.
“Two pun’!” repeated the apparition, seizing Mr. Potter’s collar. “Two pun’, yo’ gallus thief!”
Mr. Potter never hesitated, but popped the two sovereigns into the malt-shovel as though they were red-hot. And the next instant the loaf hit him in the ear and something else — perhaps it was a foot — lifted him from the rear and dropped him in the ditch by the hedge.
Mr. Potter uprose breathless and dusted his coat. The crowd was no longer near — indeed, it seemed to have stopped — and the ogre in horse-blankets was louping away over the fields, with his whiskers flying over his shoulders. But the misunderstood sportsman wasted no time and took no chances. He put the hedge between himself and the racecourse, and he started for Mugby at a forlorn trot, the money in heavy lumps jingling in his pockets and mocking him as he went.
It seemed clear that this racing and betting was a villainous and unprincipled business, after all. Even a man whose strict morals would only permit of his betting on a certainty was liable to be tripped up by some shameful technicality like this. It was all scandalous. As to Cripps and Hopkins and Dodson, he was grieved and surprised to find them taking part in it; and in regard to that shopman — but there!
It was a weary way to Mugby now, and he hurried and worried every yard of it; for his address was known, and he had a horrid apprehension that the mob would besiege him in his house as soon as the races were over. He emerged at last in the familiar High Street, and then remembered what he should have remembered before. Mugby market-day being Saturday, the little branch bank shut on early-closing afternoon instead.
It was the worst shock he had had since the whisker-man had caught him. But it must not stop him — he would knock up the manager and appeal for help. If he couldn’t get at the money he might do something — lend him some, or guarantee him to the infuriated mob, or something. So Mr. Potter hammered and rang wildly at the private door till a tousle-headed servant appeared, only so far aroused from a nap as to resentful of the disturbance.
No, Mr. Kenrick wasn’t in. Nor Mrs. Kenrick. Nor not nobody else wasn’t in nohow. And no saying when they would be in.
Mr. Potter was insistent, desperate. Where was Mr. Kenrick? Where should he go for him?
The handmaid was unsympathetic. Couldn’t say. “I dunno,” she said at last, “but it’s my belief he’s gone to the races!”
Mr. Potter’s world was crumbling about him. Here was Kenrick, the bank-manager, type of all solid respectability — gone to the races! Cripps, and Hopkins, and Dodson, and now Kenrick!
He turned and made for Tubbs’s — the chemist. The only chance now was to get some friend to cash a cheque, or to get several to advance as much as possible till the morning. Tubbs was the most likely.
Tubbs’s young man, a short youth with a large head, left in charge in case of emergency, looked up from a game of spillikins played with a boxful of matches, and was surprised to be asked for his master.
“He’s out,” he said. “Didn’t you know?”
“No,” replied Potter; “where has he gone?”
“Well, he told me not to say, but it won’t matter to you. He’s gone to the races — in a wagonette.”
Tubbs, too! And in a wagonette! The world was a worse place than Mr. Potter had ever supposed it — this part, at any rate. He sat down in the shop and gasped his astonishment. The young man sniggered.
“There’s lots of ‘em gone this year that don’t go usually,” he said. “It seems there was a certainty for the Mugby Stakes, and that fetched ‘em. Haven’t you been?” he added, pointing suddenly to the field-glasses. Mr. Potter left Tubbs’s sad and apprehensive. These things had all taken time, and the afternoon was waning. What else could he do? He would go to his Aunt Hannah’s, make a clean breast of the whole business — it would certainly come out to-morrow, anyhow — and borrow any money she and Mrs. Potter might have between them.
He trudged wearily and reluctantly round to the little villa in the lane by the end of the High Street, and was met at the door by a very bright and shiny small servant.
“Missis?” said the small servant. “No, she’s gone out. Didn’t you know? Her and Mrs. Potter went in a wagonette with Mr. Tubbs and some friends!”
There was not another illusion left in the world for Mr. Potter — not one. His own wife and — Aunt Hannah! He turned out into the lane to meditate on the depravity of the age. And behold — the wagonette itself coming down the lane!
He advanced to meet the vehicle as it pulled up. At any rate, Aunt Hannah and his wife should make their confession first; that was tactics.
And then suddenly, from the depths of the wagonette, there sprang up like a jack-in-the-box, even to the whiskers, the ogre in horse-blanket tweeds! He sprang up and out, and he made for Mr. Potter with a bounce. Mr. Potter ran round by the horses’ heads. What else could he do? The ogre doubled back, and Mr. Potter dodged the other way. The ogre came with a rush up one side of the equipage, shouting, “Eh! Eh! Coom here! I’ll pay yo!” And Mr. Potter went with another rush down the opposite side.
This was terrible. Everybody stood up in the wagonette and called and chattered unintelligibly. Mr. Potter, on the off-side of the vehicle, saw his aunt’s front door open, and made a wild dive toward it under the carriage. The ogre, about to chase him round behind, saw the plunge, and dived to meet it, from the opposite side. Their heads met with a crash, and they sat together in the road-way, locked in each other’s arms.
Mr. Potter’s impulse was to scream for help, but the malt-shovel hand was thrust across his mouth, and the ogre said, whispering and thrusting something into his hand, “Shut oop! shut oop! Here’s tha money, and you say nowt o’ me bettin’, see?”
And truly the two sovereigns were back in Mr. Potter’s hand. He spluttered wildly, and made for the kerb, but found himself gripped by the arm.
“Shut oop, see?” repeated the ogre. “Magpie crossed his legs and was beat. Shut oop about me bettin’, now!”
“Why, Uncle Wilkins, what are you doing?” asked Mrs. Potter, by this time safely on the ground with Aunt Hannah beside her. “And you, too, Samuel; what sort of game is this?”
“Tooch,” replied the divine figure from the north, scrambling out’ and lifting once more his whiskers to the breeze. “Tooch. I were always fond o’ playing tooth, from a lad. Wasn’t we playing tooth?” he added fiercely, turning to Mr. Potter as he rose.
“Yes, of course,” assented Mr. Potter, hastily. “Capital exercise, touch. I — I f
elt it would do me good.”
“But you didn’t know Uncle Wilkins, did you?” persisted Mrs. Potter. “He was coming to give us that surprise visit, and went to the Heath station by mistake. We met him there, at the — on the Heath. ‘I’d have known him anywhere; but how did you recognize him?”
“Oh, I’d know him anywhere, too,” replied the cheesemonger, his mind being chiefly occupied with the blessed realization that the certainty was a failure and all the money in his pockets was really his own after all. “Anywhere — a mile off!”
“Wonderful how people notice a fine-lookin’ man,” archly observed Aunt Hannah, who had been wishing all the afternoon she had brought her other bonnet.
“Yes, it is,” agreed Mrs. Potter. “And I am glad to see you and Samuel such friends at once, uncle. Though I did wonder what you were up to, and I certainly never saw Samuel break out like that before. But there — high spirits is catching, no doubt!”
“I believe they are,” said Mr. Potter, rapidly recovering his equanimity, with his hands deep in his bursting pockets. “I don’t believe I ever felt more high-spirited in my life!”
FRENZIED FINANCE
“Yes,” observed Snorkey Timms; “it’s a wonderful thing, is credit.” He filled his pipe from my pouch with a grunt of satisfaction and lit it with a match from my box. He paused in an instinctive motion to drop my property into his pocket, and handed the articles back with a sigh.
“They tell me,” he pursued, “that there in the City the blokes pay each other thousands o’ quids without brassing up a single real thick ‘un — all done on the nod. So that any ‘opeful party as slaves away a ‘ole night bustin’ a safe there only gets IOU’s an’ things like that, an’ nobody’ll give him a bob a ton for ‘em, cos he’s got no credit. It’s just as wonderful in a pub: a chap with credit can get a drink for marks with a bit o’ chalk, an’ the landlord even finds the chalk. Wonderful, ain’t it? I wish I ‘ad some. But it seems to be a sort o’ thing you have to be born with.”
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 275