Lord Standon set down his glass.
"Ah, that was yesterday," he said. "I was there later, and the odds were
being lifted. You can lay what you like on him, my dear fellow, and you
will have no difficulty in finding takers."
"Oh!" commented Adrien, almost listlessly. "Something better in the
field, I suppose? I thought the roan was not to be touched."
"And I, also," said Mortimer Shelton; "I can't understand it! The only
new entry was a weedy chestnut, listed by a Yorkshireman in the
afternoon. 'Holdfast' they call him."
"He'll require more hustling than holding," returned Paxhorn
sarcastically.
Lord Standon finished his wine.
"I'll back the roan while there's a penny to borrow," he said with
sublime confidence. "There's nothing can touch him."
"That's what Jasper said," remarked Leroy, "and he ought to know."
"Oh, yes, he's a good judge of a horse," grudgingly admitted Shelton,
who frankly hated him; "and of men too--when it pays him."
Leroy's face darkened slightly. Vermont was his friend, and he resented
a word spoken against him far more than he would have done one against
himself.
"You misjudge him, Shelton," he said briefly.
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