"Say what?" he said.
"I was wondering," the chauffeur said.
"Wondering what?"
"If it's as hard for him to ride off and leave her as he thinks it is. To not see her ruining this good Kentucky horse. If he has to ride as fast to do it as he thinks he does."
"What about that?"
"Maybe he don't have to ride as fast this year as he did last year, to run off from her. What do you think about it?"
"Think about what?"
"I was wondering."
"What wondering?"
"If he knowed he don't have to ride as fast this year or not."
"Oh. You mean Gawtrey."
"That his name? Gawtrey?"
"That's it. Steve Gawtrey."
"What about him?"
"He's all right. He'll eat your grub and drink your liquor and fool your women and let you say when."
"Well, what about that?"
"Nothing. I said he was all right. He's fine by me."
"How by you?"
"Just fine, see? I done him a little favor once, and he done me a little favor, see?"
"Oh," the chauffeur said. He did not look at the other.
"How long has she known him?"
"Six months and maybe a week. We was up in Connecticut and he was there. He hates a horse about as much as she does, but me and Callaghan are all right too; I done Callaghan a little favor once too, so about a week after we come back from Connecticut, I have Callaghan come in and tell Blair about this other swell dog, without telling Blair who owned it. So that night I says to Blair, 'I hear Mr. Van Dyming wants to buy this horse from Mr. Gawtrey too.'
'Buy what horse?' Blair says. 'I don't know,' I says. 'One horse looks just like another to me as long as it stays out doors where it belongs,' I says. 'So do they to Gawtrey,' Blair says. 'What horse are you talking about?'
'This horse Callaghan was telling you about,' I says. Then he begun to curse Callaghan.
'He told me he would get that horse for me,' he says. 'It don't belong to Callaghan,' I says, 'it's Mr. Gawtrey's horse.' So here it's two nights later when he brings Gawtrey home to dinner with him. That night I says, 'I guess you bought that horse.' He had been drinking and he cursed Gawtrey and Callaghan too. 'He won't sell it,' he says. 'You want to keep after him,' I says. 'A man will sell anything.'
'How keep after him, when he won't listen to a price?' he says. 'Leave your wife do the talking,' I says. 'He'll listen to her.' That was when he hit me..."
"I thought you said he just put his hand on you," the chauffeur said.
"I mean he just kind of flung out his hand when he was talking, and I happened to kind of turn my face toward him at the same time. He never aimed to hit me because he knowed I would have took him. I told him so. I had the rod in my hand, inside my coat, all the while.
"So after that Gawtrey would come back maybe once a week because I told him I had a good job and I didn't aim to have to shoot myself out of it for no man except myself maybe. He come once a week. The first time she wouldn't leave him in. Then one day I am reading the paper (you ought to read a paper now and then. You ought to keep up with the day of the week, at least) and I read where this Yale Allen boy has run off with a show gal and they had fired him off the college for losing his amateur's standing, I guess. I guess that made him mad, after he had done jumped the college anyways. So I cut it out, and this Burke kid (me and her was all right, too) she puts it on the breakfast tray that A. M. And that afternoon, when Gawtrey happens to come back, she leaves him in, and this Burke kid happens to walk into the room sudden with something I don't know what it was and here is Gawtrey and her like a fade-out in the pitchers."
"So Blair got his horse," the chauffeur said.
"What horse?"
"The horse Gawtrey wouldn't sell him."
"How could he, when Gawtrey never owned no horse no more than I do, unless it's maybe some dog still finishing last year's Selling Plate at Pimlico? Besides, Gawtrey don't owe Blair no horse yet."
"Not yet?"
"She don't like him, see. The first time he come to the house alone she wouldn't leave him into the front door. And the next time, too, if this Burke kid hadn't happened to left that piece out of the papers about this college boy on the breakfast tray. And the time after that when he come, she wouldn't leave him in again; it was like he might have been a horse maybe, or even a dog, because she hated a dog worse than she did a horse even, even if she didn't have to try to ride on no dog. If it had have been a dog, Blair wouldn't have never got her to even try to ride on it. So I'd have to go out and steam Callaghan up again until it got to where I wasn't no more than one of these Russian droshkies or something."
" A Russian what?"
"One of these fellows that can't call their own soul. Every time I would leave the house I would have to meet Gawtrey in a dump somewheres and then go to see Callaghan and soap him down, because he is one of these boys with ideas, see?"
"What kind of ideas?"
"Just ideas. Out of the Sunday school paper. About how this wasn't right because he liked her and felt sorry for her and so he wanted to tell Blair he had been lying and that Gawtrey hadn't never owned no horse. Because a fellow that won't take a nickel when it's throwed right in his face, he ain't never as big a fool to nobody as he is to the man that can have some sense about religion and keep all these golden rules in the Sunday school paper where they come from. If the Lord didn't want a man to cut his own grass, why did He put Sunday on Sunday like he did? Tell me that."
"I guess you're right," the chauffeur said.
"Sure I'm right. Jees! I told Callaghan Blair would cut his throat and mine both for a Rockefeller quarter, same as any sensible man, and I ast him if he thought gals had done all give out with Blair's wife; if she was going to be the last one they made."
"So he don't..." the chauffeur said. He ceased; then he said, "Look there."
The other man looked. Through the gap in the trees, in the center of the segment of visible rice field, they could see a tiny pink-and-black dot. It was almost a mile away; it did not appear to be moving fast.
"What's that?" the other said. "The fox?"
"It's Blair," the chauffeur said. "He's going fast. I wonder where the others are." They watched the pink-and-black dot go on and disappear.
"They've went back home if they had any sense," the other said. "So we might as well go back too."
"I guess so," the chauffeur said. "So Gawtrey don't owe Blair no horse yet."
"Not yet. She don't like him. She wouldn't leave him in the house again after that day, and this Burke kid says she come back from a party one night because Gawtrey was there. And if it hadn't been for me, Gawtrey wouldn't a got invited down here, because she told Blair that if he come, she wouldn't come. So I'd have to work on Callaghan again so he would come in once a day and steam Blair up again about the horse to get Gawtrey invited, because Blair was going to make her come." The chauffeur got out of the car and went around to the crank. The other man lighted a cigarette. "But Blair ain't got his horse yet. You take a woman with long hair like she's got, long as she keeps her hair up, it's all right. But once you catch her with her hair down, it's just been too bad."