"Oh, he'll be all right, sir. It is only a matter of a few days, but if this thing gets talked about, why, the colt will go bang down in the betting and we shall all make fortunes with the outlay of a few pounds. There is another thing I must tell you. You see, it is like this----"
Raffle turned away as he spoke, and Fielden followed him, so that the figure eagerly listening behind the gorse bush could hear no more. Though, on the whole, he had had an exceedingly fortunate morning, he bitterly regretted that the deeply-interesting conversation had been cut short just at the point when he might have picked up information that might have made his fortune.
"I wonder what they're talking about?" he muttered, as he limped painfully and slowly across the Downs towards Seton Manor. "I suppose I had better give Mr. Copley a tip. I can send it to him from one of these pubs. He doesn't deserve any consideration from me, but it will be worth a fiver later. Now for breakfast and just one drink--only one before I get back to London and draw my money. There will be plenty of time for fun this evening. What a fool I've been! If I could only have kept off that accursed liquor I should have had a stud of my own by this time."
With this philosophy on his lips Chaffey turned into the bar of the nearest public-house.
Copley sat at the breakfast-table waiting for Foster to come down. He had glanced impatiently through his letters, none of which appeared to be particularly interesting. Then he picked up a repulsive-looking envelope that lay by the side of his plate. The envelope was greasy and forbidding, though the handwriting upon it was fairly neat and clear, if a trifle unsteady. Copley was on the point of pitching it into the fire, feeling pretty sure it was something in the nature of a begging epistle, when he changed his mind and opened it.
"Dear sir," it ran, "I was on the Downs this morning and saw the trial I was speaking to you about last night. Sir George's head man thought it a dead secret, but I had had it from a sure quarter, and I saw the race between the Blenheim colt and another at half-past seven. The colt was quite stale, and, if I am any judge of such matters, I think it will take all their time to wind him up for the Guineas. I thought you would like to know this, because, properly handled, there is money in it. Perhaps it may be worth a five-pound note to me the next time we meet."