Part 100 (1/2)
”Oh! Thank you. Good-evening.”
Mr. Speedwell's answer drove them out like a flock of sheep before a dog. There was not even time to put the question to them as to who was to take him home.
”I'll look after him, Sir,” said Perry. ”You can trust me.”
”I'll go too,” added the trainer's doctor; ”and see him littered down for the night.”
(The only two men who had ”hedged” their bets, by privately backing his opponent, were also the only two men who volunteered to take him home!)
They went back to the sofa on which he was lying. His bloodshot eyes were rolling heavily and vacantly about him, on the search for something. They rested on the doctor--and looked away again. They turned to Mr. Speedwell--and stopped, riveted on his face. The surgeon bent over him, and said, ”What is it?”
He answered with a thick accent and laboring breath--uttering a word at a time: ”Shall--I--die?”
”I hope not.”
”Sure?”
”No.”
He looked round him again. This time his eyes rested on the trainer.
Perry came forward.
”What can I do for you, Sir?”
The reply came slowly as before. ”My--coat--pocket.”
”This one, Sir?”
”No.”
”This?”
”Yes. Book.”
The trainer felt in the pocket, and produced a betting-book.
”What's to be done with this. Sir?”
”Read.”
The trainer held the book before him; open at the last two pages on which entries had been made. He rolled his head impatiently from side to side of the sofa pillow. It was plain that he was not yet sufficiently recovered to be able to read what he had written.
”Shall I read for you, Sir?”
”Yes.”
The trainer read three entries, one after another, without result; they had all been honestly settled. At the fourth the prostrate man said, ”Stop!” This was the first of the entries which still depended on a future event. It recorded the wager laid at Windygates, when Geoffrey had backed himself (in defiance of the surgeon's opinion) to row in the University boat-race next spring--and had forced Arnold Brinkworth to bet against him.