"'Ope I meets yer again when I've an old crock on the
go."
Sir Timothy turned his head.
"If ever I happen to meet you, my good man," he threatened,
"using your whip upon a poor beast who's doing his best, I
promise you you won't get up in two minutes, or twenty .... We
might walk the last few yards, Mr. Ledsam."
The latter acquiesced at once, and in a moment or two they were
underneath the portico of the Opera House. Sir Timothy had begun
to talk about the opera but Francis was a little distrait. His
companion glanced at him curiously.
"You are puzzled, Mr. Ledsam?" he remarked.
"Very," was the prompt response.
Sir Timothy smiled.
"You are one of these primitive Anglo-Saxons," he said, "who can
see the simple things with big eyes, but who are terribly worried
at an unfamiliar constituent. You have summed me up in your mind
as a hardened brute, a criminal by predilection, a patron of
murderers. Ergo, you ask yourself why should I trouble to save a
poor beast of a horse from being chastised, and go out of my way
to provide her with a safe asylum for the rest of her life?
Shall I help you, Mr. Ledsam?"
"I wish you would," Francis confessed.
They had passed now through the entrance to the Opera House and
were in the corridor leading to the grand tier boxes.
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