The hunter was in
a friend's stable at some little distance; there was still time
for gentlemen to see it before dark. The friend's stable had to be
reached through a back street where you might as easily have been
poisoned without expense of drugs as in any grim street of that
unsanitary period. Fred was not fortified against disgust by brandy,
as his companions were, but the hope of having at last seen the horse
that would enable him to make money was exhilarating enough to lead
him over the same ground again the first thing in the morning.
He felt sure that if he did not come to a bargain with the farmer,
Bambridge would; for the stress of circumstances, Fred felt,
was sharpening his acuteness and endowing him with all the
constructive power of suspicion. Bambridge had run down Diamond
in a way that he never would have done (the horse being a friend's)
if he had not thought of buying it; every one who looked at
the animal--even Horrock--was evidently impressed with its merit.
To get all the advantage of being with men of this sort, you must
know how to draw your inferences, and not be a spoon who takes
things literally. The color of the horse was a dappled gray,
and Fred happened to know that Lord Medlicote's man was on the look-out
for just such a horse. After all his running down, Bambridge let
it out in the course of the evening, when the farmer was absent,
that he had seen worse horses go for eighty pounds.
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