THE RETURN MATCH. 79 



who was no other than the notorious roper Headstall — you 

 know, he was suspended for six months last season for his nefa- 

 rious practices — said to him, " Wait till we meet again. I'll bet 

 a guinea we have every coin we have dropped to-day back again, 

 and a lump on the top of it." When Wrighton mentioned to 

 me, quite in a casual way, that Slider had been entered for the 

 Greystone Plate, I at once entered Crowfoot.' 



' Same conditions ?' inquired Sir Thomas. 



' Not exactly. I carry a winning penalty of three pounds. 

 But I had plenty in hand at Ruddyford, and I shall win. The 

 Slider party are a gang of the vilest thieves on the turf, and it 

 won't be my fault if I don't break them : from Black Yarnold, 

 the ostensible owner of Slider, down to the bookmaker Leek.' 



* And we must back Crowfoot ?' 



' Yes,' replied Winpenny, laughing ; ' back him, as the specu- 

 lators would say, for pounds, shillings, and pence. I am so sure 

 of the result that I have promised myself the pleasure of buying 

 Blanche a certain roan mare she has set her heart upon out of 

 my winnings.' 



Thereafter the conversation deviated into other channels. 

 By no means the least attentive of Mr. Winpenny's auditors was 

 Trenholm, the butler. Sleekly clerical in appearance, and a 

 man of few words, the which he distributed, both on duty and 

 off, with notable discretion, he was nevertheless, for his position 

 in life, a bold speculator in the lottery of the Turf In days 

 gone by, when the Hurst stable had ' pulled off good things,' 

 Trenholm had never failed to throw in for a heavy stake, with- 

 out his master having the ghost of a suspicion of the extent of 

 his daring. Winner or loser, he never, so to put it, ' turned a 

 single hair.' He had his regular agent in London, a financial 

 operator on the Turf of long standing, to whom he intrusted his 

 commissions on distant events ; while his Redmarshall agent 

 was a game-dealer named Featherstone. Said Trenholm to 

 himself, when the Crowfoot discussion had come to an end, ' I 

 must see Featherstone to-night.' Turning over in his mind 

 various pretexts for escape, it suddenly occurred to him that 

 Mr. Winpenny had conferred with him that very afternoon on 

 the subject of the morrow's breakfast, and the probable neglect 

 by Featherstone of certain orders for birds was pointed out. 

 There was no time to be lost. Those necessary contributions 

 to the larder might even then be on their way from Red- 

 marshall to the Hurst. 



