The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. II (of II)

“No, no, my dear friend, on no account.”

“I must; there’s no help for it,” said Martin, impatiently, while he whispered something eagerly in the other’s ear.

“Well, then, some other day; another time – ”

“Here and now, Claude,” said Martin, peremptorily; while, without waiting for reply, he said aloud, “Merl, I wish to present you to Lord Claude Willoughby, – Lord Claude, Mr. Herman Merl.”

Merl bowed and smirked and writhed as his Lordship, with a bland smile and a very slight bow, acknowledged the presentation.

“Had the pleasure of meeting your Lordship at Baden two summers ago,” said the Jew, with an air meant to be the ideal of fashionable ease.

“I was at Baden at the time you mention,” said he, coldly.

“I used to watch your Lordship’s game with great attention; you won heavily, I think?”

“I don’t remember, just now,” said he, carelessly; not, indeed, that such was the fact, or that he desired it should be thought so; he only wished to mark his sense of what he deemed an impertinence.

“The man who can win at rouge-et-noir can do anything, in my opinion,” said Merl.

“What odds are you taking on Rufus?” said Martin to Willoughby, and without paying the slightest attention to Merl’s remark.

“Eleven to one; but I’ll not take it again. Hecuba is rising hourly, and some say she ‘ll be the favorite yet.”

“Is Rufus your Lordship’s horse?” said the Jew, insinuatingly.

Willoughby bowed, and continued to write in his note-book.

“And you said the betting was eleven to one on the field, my Lord?”

“It ought to be fourteen to one, at least.”

“I ‘ll give you fourteen to one, my Lord, just for the sake of a little interest in the race.”

Willoughby ceased writing, and looked at him steadfastly for a second or two. “I have not said that the odds were fourteen to one.”

“I understand you perfectly, my Lord; you merely thought that they would be, or, at least, ought to be.”

“Merl wants a bet with you, in fact,” said Martin, as he applied alight to his meerschaum; “and if you won’t have him, I will.”

“What shall it be, sir,” said Lord Claude, pencil in hand; “in ponies – fifties?”

“Oh, ponies, my Lord. I only meant it, just as I said, to give me something to care for in the race.”

“Will you put him up at the ‘Cercle’ after that?” whispered Martin, with a look of sly malice.

“I’ll tell you when the match is over,” said Willoughby, laughing; “but if I won’t, here ‘s one that will. That’s a neat phaeton of Cavendish’s.” And at the same instant Martin opened the window, and made a signal with his handkerchief.

“That’s the thing for you, Merl,” said Martin, pointing down to a splendid pair of dark chestnuts harnessed to a handsome phaeton. “It’s worth five hundred pounds to any fellow starting an equipage to chance upon one of Cavendish’s. He has not only such consummate taste in carriage and harness, but he makes his nags perfection.”

“He drives very neatly,” said Willoughby.

“What was it he gave for that near-side horse? – a thousand pounds, I think.”

“Twelve hundred and fifty, and refused a hundred for my bargain,” said a very diminutive, shrewd-looking man of about five-and-thirty, who entered the room with great affectation of juvenility. “I bought him for a cab, never expecting to ‘see his like again,’ as Shakspeare says.”

“And you offered the whole concern yesterday to Damre-mont for fifty thousand francs?”

“No, Harry, that’s a mistake. I said I ‘d play him a match at piquet, whether he gave seventy thousand for the equipage or nothing. It was he that proposed fifty thousand. Mine was a handsome offer, I think.”

“I call it a most munificent one,” said Martin. “By the way, you don’t know my friend here, Mr. Merl, Sir Spencer Cavendish.” And the baronet stuck his glass in his eye, and scanned the stranger as unscrupulously as though he were a hack at Tattersairs.

“Where did he dig him up, Claude?” whispered he, after a second.

“In India, I fancy; or at the Cape.”

“That fellow has something to do with the hell in St. James’s Street; I ‘ll swear I know his face.”

“I ‘ve been telling Merl that he ‘s in rare luck to find such a turn-out as that in the market; that is, if you still are disposed to sell.”

“Oh, yes, I’ll sell it; give him the tiger, boots, cockade, and all, – everything except that Skye terrier. You shall have the whole, sir, for two thousand pounds; or, if you prefer it – ”

A certain warning look from Lord Claude suddenly arrested his words, and he added, after a moment, – “But I ‘d rather sell it off, and think no more of it.”

“Try the nags; Sir Spencer, I’m sure, will have no objection,” said Martin. But the baronet’s face looked anything but concurrence with the proposal.

“Take them a turn round the Bois de Boulogne, Merl,” said Martin, laughing at his friend’s distress.

“And he may have the turn-out at his own price after the trial,” muttered Lord Claude, with a quiet smile.

“Egad! I should think so,” whispered Cavendish; “for, assuredly, I should never think of being seen in it again.”

“If Sir Spencer Cavendish has no objection, – if he would permit his groom to drive me just down the Boulevards and the Rue Rivoli – ”

The cool stare of the baronet did not permit him to finish. It was really a look far more intelligible than common observers might have imagined, for it conveyed something like recognition, – a faint approach to an intimation that said, “I ‘m persuaded that we have met before.”

“Yes, that is the best plan. Let the groom have the ribbons,” said Martin, laughing with an almost schoolboy enjoyment of a trick. “And don’t lose time, Merl, for Sir Spencer would n’t miss his drive in the Champs Elysees for any consideration.”

“Gentlemen, I am your very humble and much obliged servant!” said Cavendish, as soon as Merl had quitted the room. “If that distinguished friend of yours should not buy my carriage – ”

“But he will,” broke in Martin; “he must buy it.”

“He ought, I think,” said Lord Claude. “If I were in his place, there’s only one condition I ‘d stipulate for.”

“And that is – ”

“That you should drive with him one day – one would be enough – from the Barrière de l‘Étoile to the Louvre.”

“This is all very amusing, gentlemen, most entertaining,” said Cavendish, tartly; “but who is he? – I don’’t mean that, – but what is he?”