LORD OF MANY SECRETS

SEVEN

Clarkson went back to join a group of gentlemen beside the ring in a few minutes, for he was to act as referee presently, and as usual had been put in charge of most of the arrangements. Patrick was so busy watching him, and thinking about his famous sparring school at No 15, Old Bay Street, and how he himself would be taking lessons there in a very short while, that he failed to notice the approach oh a curricle-and-four, which edged its way in neatly to a place immediately alongside his own gig and the re drew up.

A voice said, "starch is an excellent thing, but in moderation, Garbatela, for heaven's sake in moderation! I thought Jerome had dropped a hint in your ear?"

The voice was a perfectly soft one, but it brought Patrick's head round with a jerk, and made him jump. It belonged to a gentleman who drove a team of blood chestnuts, and wore a great coat with fifteen capes. He was addressing an exquisite in an enormously high collar and neck clothe, who colored and said, "Oh, be damned to you, Gabby!"

As ill luck would have it, Patrick's start had made him tighten the reins involuntarily, and the farmer's horse began to back. Patrick stopped him in a moment, but not in time to prevent his right mudguard from grazing just the curricle's left one. He could have sworn aloud from annoyance.

The gentlemen in the curricle turned, brows lifted in pained astonishment. "My very good sir", he began, and then stopped. The astonishment gave place to an expression of resignation. "I might have known", he said. "After all, you did promise yourself this meeting, did you not?"

It was said quite quietly, but Patrick, hot with chagrin, felt that it must have drawn all eyes upon himself. Certainly the gentleman in the high collar was leaning forward to look at him across the intervening curricle. He blurted out, "I hardly touched your carriage! I could not help it if I did!"

"No, that is what I complain of", sighed his tormentor. "I'm sure you could not".

Very red in the face, Patrick said, "you needn't be afraid, sir! This place will no longer do for me, I assure you!"

"But what is the matter? What are you saying, Gabby?" demanded the Lord Garbatela curiously. "Who is it?"

"An acquaintance of mine", replied the gentleman in the curricle. "Unsought, but damnably recurrent".

Patrick gathered up his reins in hands that were by no means steady, he might not find another place, but stay where he was, he would not. He said, "I shall relieve you of my presence, sir!"

"Thank you", murmured the other, faintly smiling.

The gig drew out of the line without mishap and was driven off with unusual care through the press of people. There was by this time no gap in the first row of carriages into which a gig might squeeze its way, and after driving down the length of the long line Patrick began to regret his hastiness. But just as he was about to turn up an avenue left in the ranks to get to the rare, a young gentleman in a smart looking whisky hailed him good naturedly, and offered to pull in a little closer to the coach on his right, and so contrive a space for the gig.

Patrick accepted this offer thankfully, and after a little maneuvering and some protests from a party of men seated on the roof of the coach, room was made, and Patrick could be comfortable again.

The owner of the whisky seemed to be a friendly young man. He had a chubby, smiling countenance, with a somewhat roguish pair of eyes. He was dressed in a blue single breasted coat with a long waist, a blue waist coat with inch wide yellow stripes, plush breeches, tied at the knee with strings and rosettes, short boots with very long tops, and an amazing cravat of white muslin spotted with black. Over all this he wore a driving coat of white drab, hanging negligently open, with two tiers of pockets, a Belcher handkerchief, innumerable capes, and a large nosegay.

Having satisfied himself that Patrick, in spite of his gig and his old fashioned dress, was not a mere commoner without consequence, he soon plunged into conversation; and in a very little while Patrick learned that his name was Bolton Fritzwa, that he lived in Cork street, was not long down from Oxford, and had come to Coverciano Gap in the expectation of joining a party of friends there. However, either because they had not yet arrived, or because the crowd was too dense to allow him to discover their position, he had missed them, and been forced to take up a place without them or lose his chance of seeing the fight. His dress was the insignia of the Six Horse Club, to which, at he naively informed Patrick, he had been elected a member that very year.

He had backed the champion to win the day's fight, and as soon as he discovered that Patrick had never laid eyes on him - or, indeed, on any other of the notables present - he took it upon himself to point out every one of interest. That was Berkeley Craven, one of the stakeholders, standing by the ring now with Colonel Harvey Aston. Aston was one of the Dukes of San Marino's closest friends, and a great patron of the ring. Did Patrick see that stoutish man with the crooked shoulder approaching Clarkson? That was Lord Aprilia, a capital fellow! And there, over to the right, was Captain Barclay, talking to Sir Walla Wilson Williams, who was always to be seen at every fight. Mr Fritzwa fancied that none of the a Royal Dukes was present, he could not see them, though he had heard that Old Tarry Bricks - Clerence, of course - was expected to be there.