twinkling remotely through a mist. "Rogues and rasqueals, Mr.
Silver!" he said. "Whatebber should we do without um?"

CHAPTER XXXVI

Monkey Sulks

On the Sunday after the trial on the Mare's Back Jerry went solemnly
round the assembled lads before Bible Class, his hat in his hand and in
the hat a couple of coppers.

"What for?" asked Alf, the cherub.

The lads were used to what they called "levies" in the stable--sometimes
for a new football or something for the club, sometimes for a pal who
was in a hole.

"Mr. Silver," answered Jerry. "He's done us proud while he could. Now
it's our turn to do a bit for him."

"Is it as bad as all that?" asked Alf, wide-eyed.

"It's worse," said Jerry, with dramatic restraint.

The cherub peeped into the hat, fingering a tanner.

He was genuinely concerned for Mr. Silver.

"If I put in a tanner, how'll I know Mr. Silver'll get it?" he asked
ingenuously.

Stanley jeered, and Jerry shot his chin forward.

"Say, young Alf," he said. "Am I a genelman?--or ain't I?"

"That ain't 'ardly for me to say, Jerry," answered the cherub with
delicate tact.

Then there might have been trouble but for the interference of the
lordly Albert.

"Don't you let him pinch nothin' off o' you, Alf," he said. "Mr.
Silver's all right."

"What ye mean?" asked the indignant Jerry. "Ain't he broke then?"

"He'll be a rich man again by then I done with him," answered Albert
loftily. "That's what I mean."

"When will you be done with him then?" jeered Jerry.

"After the National," answered Albert. "Yes, my boy, you'll get your
'alf-dollar at Christmas same as usual--if so be you deserves it."

Jerry sneered.

"Albert thinks _he's_ goin' to get the ride," he cried.
"Likely!--G-r-r-r!"

Albert was unmoved as a mountain and as coldly majestic.

"I don't think. I knows," he said, folding his arms.

"What do you know then?"

"I knows what I knows," answered Albert, in true sacerdotal style. "And
I knows more'n them as don't know nothin'."

Albert did really know something, but he did not know more than
anybody else. In those days, indeed, two facts were common property at
Putnam's. Everybody knew them, and everybody liked to believe that
nobody else did. The two facts were that Albert was going to ride
Four-Pound-the-Second at Aintree, and that Mr. Silver stood to get his
money back upon the race. There was a third fact, too, that everybody
knew. It was different from the oth