Joan Smith Read Free Page B

“Oh, Peter will want to hear this! Norman has discovered a horse he thinks Peter will want to buy. It only costs two hundred guineas. Two-fifty is the top price Peter is ready to spend, you know.”
    As she spoke, there was a clatter of heavy boots on the stairs rising up to their rooms. “It is Lord Clappet!” Mrs. Harrington exclaimed, a smile alighting on her lips, and they both left the dining room. Lord Clappet was welcome to darken the door anytime he pleased, but he was never so welcome as on those occasions when he did not carry his Latin tomes. The aunt harbored the hope that his infatuation for her niece would mushroom into true love. When he came without Sir Charles Nicolson, he was doubly welcome. After one loud bang, Peter opened the door and pounced in.
    “The greatest news, Trudie!” he exclaimed. “Norman has found me a racer!”
    “I was just reading the same thing,” Trudie answered, taking his hat and gloves and setting them on the hall table; there was no butler to perform this office for their infrequent callers.
    Lord Clappet was tall and well-formed. His dark curls framed a face that was boyishly attractive and would one day be as handsome as even he could desire. His earnest wish was to be a sophisticated Corinthian like his uncle Luten, but his youthful enthusiasm kept getting in his way. He fancied he was already as fine a fiddler as any of the bucks. He could handle his fists without causing mirth in any corner; he had hardly missed the wafers last time he visited Manton’s Shooting Gallery and was a bruising rider to hounds. All that remained was to own a string of winning racehorses. The racer of which he spoke was the first step in this direction.
    In his excitement, he preceded his hostess into her small, cozy parlor, made a very short bow to her aunt, then sat down, but remembered to pop up again when Trudie entered the room behind him.
    “I darted down to my bank the minute I read this,” he said, the words tumbling out in his excitement. “Only two hundred guineas—imagine! I wouldn’t have thought it possible. Norman is up to anything. She won a selling race at Brighton. Norman spoke to the owner, and I am to go down and take a look at her as soon as possible. I shall leave tomorrow morning with Nick. You have to make an early start in the racing season. I’ll get her a good trainer, enter her in some of the lesser races for experience, and when she is fit ...” He tossed up his hands. His audience was to understand by this gesture that the next inevitable step was that he, like Norman, would walk away with the Triple Crown.
    “Norman didn’t mention the sex. A promising youngster, he called it. So it’s a filly, then?” Trudie asked.
    “Yes, and with a streak of Arab blood in her. Her dam has won a dozen hurdle races, and her sire took the maiden plate at Newmarket three years ago. Excellent blood.” He smiled happily.
    “Have you told your mother?” Mrs. Harrington inquired, throwing quite a pall over the lad’s enthusiasm.
    “Not yet,” he replied briefly. “As Norman has got me such a bargain, there is no need for her to know. I got my quarter allowance just last week and am loaded with blunt. I can handle all the expenses for the present at least. I may need a little advance if Firebird works out and is to be entered in the large races. Nick thinks I might be wiser to start out small till I learn my way around the turf; then, when I am more up to snuff, go for the big ones. But if Firebird is half so promising as Norman indicates, I mean to jump in this year.”
    “You’ll have to tell her, if you mean to go up north for the training,” Mrs. Harrington pointed out.
    “Oh, as to that,” he mentioned ever so casually, “I am no longer living with Mama.”
    “Peter, what has happened?” Trudie asked, staring. She already knew Lady Clappet for an eccentric. Such a plethora of excuses had been offered for Peter’s not taking them to call that they