"Don"t you believe it?" mocked the little jockey.
The tout drew closer.
"Who is, then?"
Monkey ducked his head and patted the back of it.
"Never!" cried Joses.
The other raised a deprecatory hand and turned away.
"You know best, o" course, Mr. Joses," he said. "You"ve the run o"
Putnam"s same as me. And you"re an eddicated man from Oxford College, where they knows all there is to know."
He was limping away.
Joses hung on his heels.
"Steady on, old sport," he said. "D"you mean that?"
Monkey swung about.
"See here, Mr. Joses," he whispered. "When a gal"s out to win a man she"ll do _funny_ things."
The fat man breathed heavily.
Then he began to laugh.
"And it"s win the National or lose the man!" he said. "Quite a romance!"
CHAPTER x.x.xVII
The Early Bird
Next Sunday found Joses among the earliest and most attentive of the worshippers at church.
Boy Woodburn entered later, walked slowly up the aisle, and took her place in the front pew. As she bowed her head in her hands, the fat man, watching with all his eyes, learned what he had come to learn.
After service he waited outside.
As he stood among the tomb-stones, the girl pa.s.sed, not seeing him.
"Good morning, Miss Woodburn," he said ironically.
She looked up suddenly, resentfully.
His presence there clearly surprised and even startled the girl.
She pa.s.sed on without a word and with the faintest nod of acknowledgment.
The fat man, with a chuckle, thought he could diagnose the cause of her annoyance.
Next morning he met Boy in the village.
She was wearing a close-fitting woollen cap, that covered her hair, and the collar of her coat was turned up.
The collar of the girl"s coat was always turned up now, he remarked sardonically, though the sun was gaining daily in power and the wind losing its nip.
She sauntered past him, and seemed even ready for a chat.
Never slow to seize a chance, the fat man closed with her at once.
"How goes it, Miss Woodburn?" he said.
"Very well, thank you."
"So you"re going to win the National?"
"Are we?"
"He"s good enough, isn"t he?"
The girl shrugged her shoulders.
"Who"s going to ride him?"
"Albert, I suppose," replied the girl casually. "There"s n.o.body else."
"Not Monkey Brand?"
She shook her head.
"Too old," she said.
"Will he gallop for Albert?" asked the other.
"Depends on his mood," replied the girl.
The fat man laughed.
"There"s only one person he will gallop for--certain," he said.
Boy looked away.