Chapter X: The Notorious Gay

Gay and the Professor were sitting at luncheon, the girl still highly delighted with her recent success, and laughing as she described Lossie Holden's disgust at Min Toplady.

"She called her low, Frank, fancy that! Dear old Min, who was always so good to us, and never said an unkind word. You remember her well enough, don't you?"

The Professor agreed that he did, though he felt that his recent interview with the lady in question did not justify him in amplifying his sister's description of her amiability.

He fidgeted nervously with his letters (mostly circulars), then ran his knife down the wrapper of a newspaper which lay by his plate.

"Why have they sent me this, I wonder?" he said. He had not long to wait for an answer to his question, for upon smoothing out the paper, his attention was instantly attracted to the front page.

The next moment, with a startled exclamation, he hurled the paper from him, pushed back his chair, and walked to the window, rather to Gay's astonishment, though he always became "light-headed," as she called it, when anything but the obviously expected happened.

She snatched the paper up, and the next minute broke into a ripple of laughter. What she saw was a full-page illustration of the Trotting at Waterloo Park, Silver Streak winning, and inset at one corner a remarkably life-like snapshot of herself, in close conversation with "Brusher" Tugwood.

Below was some letterpress giving her name, and describing her as a new recruit to the sport, with one or two personal compliments with which she could easily have dispensed. The snapshot was deeply blue-pencilled round, while in the margin appeared a big note of interrogation, evidently ironic.

"Isn't it _good_! How flattering!" she said provokingly, though her thoughts flew to Chris, and how annoyed he would be.

Her brother did not reply. His pride--or what did duty for it--was mortally hurt. To think that his sister--the sister of Frank Lawless, F.R.C.S., F.R.S., etc.--should be exploited in a public print like any opera-bouffe girl--it was too much!

"They'll call you 'the _Trotting_ Girl!'" he squealed.

"Most women waddle," said Gay flippantly, "and if my action is one-half as good as some Pacers I have seen, I am quite satisfied. But are you sure it was addressed to you, Frank?" and Gay looked at the wrapper to try to identify the handwriting, but found no clue there.

"Some justly indignant friend of yours--or mine--has seen this rag"--he spoke bitterly, and without turning to face her--"and sent it on with a commentary that speaks volumes for their opinion of your taste. I hope you are pleased with your--notoriety."

"I am," Gay replied emphatically--"delighted, and I hope it will give a leg-up to a real good sport, though I don't flatter myself that my connection with it will boom it much. What is there to be annoyed about?" she went on. "Surely there's nothing so very disgraceful in being snapshotted? I assure you I didn't pose for the photo."

She thought it absurd that he should take the thing so seriously, and not in the least see its sporting side, and now looked at the paper again with a provoking laugh.

"I think you ought to be proud of such a pretty sister," she said pertly, "instead of standing there grizzling, and trying to belittle my sporting tendencies. I'm awfully amused at it. Perhaps, in the course of time, I may aspire to the dignity of the Sporting and Dramatic, who knows?"

The Professor did not reply, though his wrath was abating. Min's suggestion that his sister might be driven to seek companionship and recreation away from him had sunk into his mind, and though he could not bring himself to encourage, or even tolerate, her deplorable taste in sport, he was nevertheless wide-awake enough now to the possibilities of existence without her.

"It can't be helped, I suppose, my dear," he said at last, "but it is to be regretted. Were it not for the degrading influences--"

"Don't talk nonsense, Frank!" Gay interrupted. "You don't call Mr. Mackrell degraded, do you?"

"Of course not, my dear. I find him singularly refined for an--er--a sporting-man."

"Oh! when _will_ you learn the difference between a sportsman and a sporting-man, Heron?" Gay asked piteously.

The Professor declined to prophesy.

"By the way," she said, "Mr. Mackrell is coming to tea this afternoon, and has asked permission to bring Mr. Rensslaer with him. He's the great driver and owner of Trotters, you know--I daresay you've often seen his name in the papers--they say his stable contains the pick of the horses of the world--but, of course, you haven't," she added, laughing.

"This place is becoming quite a sporting rendezvous," said Frank spitefully. "I hope, at any rate, you will have the decency to exclude reporters from your meetings."

Gay stamped her foot.

"Don't be absurd, Frank," she cried with spirit. "None of my friends interfere with you, and you needn't shed the gloom of your depressing countenance on the scene if you don't want to. I expect Lossie as well, and I've no doubt she'd much prefer talking science (ahem!) with you, to listening to us talking horses."

"I appreciate Lossie's attitude towards sport as thoroughly as I deplore yours," he said with unexpected energy.

"That's all right, then," Gay replied cheerfully. "You two ought to make a match of it. Why don't you?"

The Professor actually blushed, and to cover his confusion, ambled away towards his laboratory, while Gay puzzled over that blue pencil mark of interrogation, in vain.

Later in the afternoon, as she sat in the drawing-room awaiting the arrival of her visitors, she looked very different to the little tomboy who so lately had driven her horse round the racing track. Dressed as usual in white, and almost buried in the depths of a saddle-backed chair drawn up close to the fire, it seemed impossible to associate her with the keen sportswoman, who openly declared that she would walk ten miles to see a steeplechase or a trotting race, and who rode and drove equally well.

Or so, indeed, thought Rensslaer, as he followed Carlton Mackrell into the room--possibly his expression showed a little of the surprise he felt, for Gay laughed as they were introduced.

"I suppose the women on your side don't do such outrageous things as own Trotters, do they?" she said demurely, as Rensslaer shook her hand heartily.

"I always admire a straight 'sport,' man or woman," he said, looking into Gay's grey eyes, "and I am proud to meet you."

"Thank you," she replied simply. "Do sit down, and tell us all about Trotting in America. I had no idea until lately that you were so keen on it over there."

Rensslaer blinked with those brown eyes of his, that looked so kind above the big, nondescript nose, and brown moustache just streaked with grey. He was so used to being taken for an American who had made a speciality of owning and driving fast Trotters, that he seldom took the trouble to explain how he had never set foot in the United States, was born in St. Petersburg, had a French mother, and that to cultivate Trotters was only one of his many pursuits.

"Well, in America a man takes it as a personal reproach if another man passes him on the road with a horse," he said. "Trotting there is brought to a fine art, and apart from track racing, there is keen competition in Trotting races, called 'Matinée Races,' that take place with gentlemen drivers, much as polo is played at the London Clubs of Hurlingham and Ranelagh. In fact, it is considered a distinction to own and drive a fast trotter in America, Austria, and Russia, instead of a man being rather ashamed of it as in England, where, if you want something fast and showy, you prefer a hackney."

Carlton shook his head--he honestly thought a trotting horse or pacer going at full speed a far prettier sight, as did Gay, and they both said so.

"Ever since the big association agreed to a code of rules a few years back," went on Rensslaer, "it has become _the_ sport of America. Yes, it's curious," he went on reflectively, "that England, considered to be the most horse-loving country in the world, has never cared for Trotters, that while in Russia the Orloff Trotter is considered fit for the Emperor to drive, and in the United States, the President, in England he is always looked on as a butcher's horse, and quite unfit to be seen in aristocratic society."

"Well," said Carlton, "as I believe about three million pounds worth of prizes are trotted for each year, it is no wonder the Trotter is popular in America."

Gay laughed, so did Rensslaer. When he laughed, he screwed up his face till his eyes were invisible, and Gay found him deliciously quaint.

"But they play the game, Miss Lawless," he said. "In all countries, except England, there have been ruling bodies over Trotting which safeguarded the sport, but in England, till lately, everyone could do as he liked, with what results may be easily imagined. Consequently Trotting has got a bad name, and people fight shy of a sport which does not rank any higher than prize, cock, and dog fighting."

"But we're improving," exclaimed Carlton. "The last few years very strong endeavours have been made to purify the sport in England, and several Trotting Clubs have sprung up which impose heavy penalties and expulsion on anyone not acting in a strictly honourable manner."

"So I have heard," said Rensslaer drily, "but it will be a hard task, as so many horses have been imported from America, then raced under false names in England, and it is often impossible to trace the original names of such horses. In short, there will never have been any classes on this side for real American trotters, until they are introduced at an International Horse Show here that we hope to arrange. In all the so-called trotting races in England, they let pacers start, and the public doesn't know the difference. They say in consequence that the American trotter is no good, that he only shuffles."

"You are hard on pacers," said Carlton drily. "Well, a pacer of say 2.15 speed is very much less valuable than a trotter of the same speed, so it is cheaper to get pacers than trotters, and anyone having a really fast trotter has the mortification of being beaten by a cheap second-rate pacer."

"The fastest trotting breed of all is the American, of course?" said Gay, eager to glean all she could about what interested her so keenly.

"Yes, the Russian Orloff used to be at least some twenty seconds slower, but now, with an admixture of American blood, they are getting much faster, and one or two of the longer distance records have been captured by Russian horses; very soon they will be quite the equals of Americans, and in Italy and Vienna the native trotter (which is really bred from imported American Russian crosses), is getting very fast. At the present time a trotter to be a first-class one must be able to trot in 2.8, a really extra good one in 2.3, a pacer in 2.2 or under, as the pacers going under two minutes are getting quite usual almost."

"And where do the English trotters--my trotters--come in?" inquired Gay, rather crestfallen.

Rensslaer smiled.

"As to the English trotter," he said, "there is no such thing. A horse is not a trotter unless he can trot a mile in 2 minutes 30 seconds, or faster, and no English horse can do that. All the horses racing in England are American horses, or of American parentage."

"Oh, come!" protested Carlton. "What about hackneys?"

"Of course there are legends of wonderful times made by hackneys in England early in the last century," said Rensslaer, "but when one considers the shady nature of trotting in those days, and the rough way of measuring distances--from such a milestone to such a milestone (and sometimes a milestone was shifted during the night before a match)--there is no way of being sure of any records."

"You won't leave us a leg to stand on," sighed Gay. "I suppose _you'll_ end by trotting a mile a minute!"

"Well, the average speed of trotters in America increases year by year. Ages ago, a professor worked out how long it would be before a horse trotted in two minutes the mile, but it was trotted several years before the time he had prophesied, though this was accounted for by the improvement in sulkies. You see, the original high-wheeled sulky with iron tyres weighed sixty or more pounds, and some eight years ago the ball-bearing, pneumatic-tyred, bicycle-wheeled sulky was invented, weighing only twenty-three pounds or less, and this makes a difference of three or four seconds in the mile, so the two-minute trotter came before his time."

Carlton Mackrell nodded.

"In hers, you mean," he said. "Lou Dillon. What were her best times?"

Rensslaer ticked them off on his fingers.

"In 1903, at Cleveland, a mile in two minutes two and three-quarter seconds," he said; "the same year at Readville, two minutes dead, and the best of all, one minute fifty-eight and a half at Memphis. That's travelling for you, isn't it--though the last time was made with a pace-maker, and a wind-shield in front. But that doesn't get away from the fact that the distance was covered in the time."

"How wonderful!" Gay exclaimed, thinking into what insignificance paled Silver Streak's performance at Inigo Court against such lightning speed.

"Dan Patch, too, the champion pacer," said Rensslaer reflectively. "He paced to a record of one minute fifty-nine and a half, which stands, though his absolute best was one minute fifty-six and a quarter with a wind-shield in front. Star Pointer was another pacer who did the mile in one fifty-nine and a quarter, with no assistance. Then the best American tracks are mile tracks, and the English are all two laps to the mile. Horses which trot in England cannot equal the times they made in America, the tracks being at least five seconds slower--that is to say, a horse which can trot in 2.10 in the States is not likely to go faster than 2.15 on an English track when he comes over to England."

Carlton looked at the speaker keenly.

Like most great men, Rensslaer was the essence of modesty, and not one word had he said about his own stable, of certain famous horses that he had driven in England faster than their American records, driven with a superb skill that the public unfortunately seldom had a chance of appreciating, as he did not exhibit.

"Do record-breaking Trotters cost much?" inquired Gay, thinking of the modest five hundred that the Professor never ceased to quote as an instance of mad extravagance.

"As much as twenty-one thousand pounds has been given for a Trotter, and eight to twelve thousand pounds for a horse for driving on the road is quite common," said Rensslaer. "A nine-year-old gelding has been known to fetch six thousand, and is, of course, of no value after his remaining few years of soundness are over."

"Oh, how I wish the Professor were here!" cried Gay, and Rensslaer looked at her inquiringly, then said:

"You see, everywhere but in England, the premier horse-breeding country of the world, it has become something more than mere sport--breeding trotters is one of the recognised means of improving the general utility horse (and especially the army horse) in every country except Great Britain. Why, in Russia there are large studs kept up under Government comptrole, and the same thing in France, Austria, etc., it being recognised that the trotting horse can do more work, and keep it up longer, than any other breed of horse."

"And there is no such comptrole here," said Carlton thoughtfully.

"No, it is a pity," said Rensslaer simply.

"Why don't you race here?" exclaimed Gay in her impulsive way, and Carlton wondered how Rensslaer would reply without deeply offending her new-born craze for the sport.

"Well," said Rensslaer, "I don't approve of letting pacers compete with trotters, and also, I don't like the mile-and-a-half handicap racing from standing post--

"I'm afraid you're proud," said Gay sadly, and at that moment the door opened to admit Chris, who, true to his creed, gave no sign of his deep disappointment at not finding Gay alone, though a little surprised to see who her visitor was.

He, of course, knew Rensslaer well enough by sight and reputation, but took no particular interest in him, or his famous Elsinore stable, in which steeplechasers, as apart from jumpers, were conspicuous by their absence. Like the rest of the world, he judged Rensslaer by his Trotting records alone.

When Gay had introduced him to Rensslaer, the latter went on with what he had to say in the quiet, chatting way that was so pleasant; he never laid down the law, but was always interesting without trying to be.

"I must confess," he said, "that I like Class racing in mile heats. This means that trotters in any given race must belong to that "class"; for instance the 2.20 class is for horses which have not got a record faster than 2 minutes 20 seconds for a mile. The horses have a flying start, the race is trotted in heats of a mile each, with twenty minutes' interval between heats, the horse winning three heats first, getting first prize. Now, by the English handicap method, a fast horse has to start behind, and it "breaks his heart," and spoils a good horse, to have to try and make up several hundred yards to catch a little shuffling butcher's pony, who has been given that start of him. It is like making a man fight a boy, the man with his hands tied behind his back so that he cannot defend himself, and after a few such races a good horse gets sick of the whole thing, and is spoilt as a race Trotter."

"Oh!" cried Gay, all the more indignantly that at the moment she caught Chris's eye with a world of meaning in it, "you are trying to put me off Trotting--and I _won't_ be put off! After all," she added naïvely, "I'm glad you are not racing, for I've set my heart on winning the Gold Vase."

"I hope you may," he said heartily, feeling that every moment he liked her better. "But apart from racing, the fact is, your roads are not made for trotters and pacers, and if you want something showy, you prefer a hackney. In short, you run to dogcarts, not road wagons; you're a sociable people--and in my opinion nothing will ever establish Trotting as a favourite sport in England."

Chris gave Gay a comical look, and picked up the _Looking-Glass_ (that he had already seen, much to his disgust) which lay on a table near.

"Someone sent the Professor a copy," said Gay carelessly. "It had a note of interrogation against it, and was meant to be rude, I think. I wonder who it is that takes so much trouble about poor little me?"

The door opened pat on the question, and Lossie Holden came in, a radiant apparition, but as Rensslaer was introduced, "society," he said to himself, then glancing at Gay, added "sport" with appreciative emphasis.

"What are you looking at?" she said coolly, and took the _Looking-Glass_ from Chris's hand. "How nice! You might almost have posed for it, Gay!"

"Do you think so?" Gay inquired. "But I didn't, you know."

"Of course not," Lossie agreed. "As if you _could_!" But meeting Chris's eyes, she looked away--he had an excellent idea of who had sent the _Looking-Glass_ to the Professor, and she knew it.

"Why don't you drive yourself, Miss Lawless?" said Rensslaer quietly.

"Oh, if I only dared!" cried Gay warmly, and clasped her hands together eagerly.

"Well," said Rensslaer, "in Berlin there was an outcry when a lady drove for me, but in Vienna it was otherwise--quite a feather in the lady's cap, in short. But then everything is done in such a nice way that it is a pleasure to race there, and the Trotting races are the most fashionable sport in Vienna."

Chris's face was grave--the thing was getting beyond a joke. It was all Mackrell's fault, and bad enough, without Rensslaer coming along to encourage wilful Gay in defying public opinion at a sport that his own refusal, and that of Vancouver and others, to take up in England, had practically declared to be unfit for gentlemen.

"Why not?" repeated Rensslaer, as he rose to go, and at something in his voice Gay coloured. Surely it could not be possible that he had seen her driving Silver Streak round the track at Inigo Court! But already she knew him well enough to be sure that he would not peach on her, and she longed to see him alone, that they might discuss at their ease his daring suggestion. Gay earnestly begged of him to come again soon, but neither Mackrell nor Chris displayed any marked cordiality on taking leave of him. Lossie only was gracious, that being her way with millionaires.

"He seems to regard Trotting as a sort of public-house show," said Carlton, when the other had departed, and Chris remarking rather audibly that Rensslaer was not far out, Gay promptly turned her back on him, and devoted herself to the comforting of her fellow-patron of the noble sport.

Very shortly, therefore, with a composure that completely hid his disgust at an exceedingly disagreeable afternoon, instead of the happy one with dear little Gay that Chris had expected, he made his farewells, and departed.

Gay, relenting, called out after him:

"Don't forget that the Ffolliott's dance is on Friday!" But Chris had by no means forgotten. In his own mind he had fixed on that special evening to ask Gay a most particular question, and now that, as he expressed it, she seemed like going "an awful mucker," with Mackrell's assistance, it was more than ever important that he should ask it, and have the right to protect her from herself--and others.