CHAPTER XVIII. 



TURNOVER r. BINKIE. 



Although Jack Dashwood had missed the big event with 

 Sheldrake, he had managed to win about twenty pounds when 

 he pulled off the last race of the day, and as Sir Tommy als3 

 had backed the horse — strictly ' on the nod ' with a confiding 

 l^ookmaker — they were both in excellent spirits as they drove 

 back to The Chase. Penelope also was more than delighted 

 because of Eonald's win. But with these exceptions, there 

 was a certain gloom and dulness over the rest of the party. 

 Septimus was extremely sleepy, and bored to death at being 

 made to witness a sport for which he did not care twopence ; 

 Mrs. Septimus was trying to quell a growing dislike for the 

 Lumpkins, whose conduct had again been haughty and what 

 she described as top-loftical. " I begin to hate that stuck-up 

 minx, and think that even my fool of a son " (Mrs. Binkie never 

 minced matters with regard to poor Travers) "is a sight too 

 good for her. Who's she, I should like to know, to give her- 

 self such airs '? and what if the Binkie money was made in 

 ' Composites ' ? They was r/ood Composites, anyhow ! " 



And that ' fool of a son ' himself was divided between 

 satisfaction at the thought that he would ever thereafter be 

 able to ' gas ' to his female acquaintance that he had ridden 

 in a steeplechase, and vexation that his Luty had not been 



