The sporting chance

								

addressed.  He was one of those men who seldom, even early in the
morning, appear quite sober.
While on the road Armitage would have continued to make fun of
Mostyn, an easy victim, had not Royce quietly intervened.  The big
financier had taken a fancy to the boy, and did not intend to see him
bullied.
It was unfair, and particularly so because Mostyn had admitted from
the first, and with becoming modesty, that he was totally lacking in
racing experience.  Yet he was obviously enthusiastic, and Anthony
Royce, man of the world, admired the enthusiasm of the tall fair boy
who was so simple and yet so manly withal.  There was something about
Mostyn's eyes, too; but upon this point the American was not yet sure
of his ground.  Mostyn Clithero was risking much that day.  This
jaunt to the Derby was a stolen expedition, undertaken without the
knowledge of his father, and Mostyn knew quite well that when the
truth came out there would be a terrible scene.
John Clithero looked upon the race-course as the devil's playground,
and racing men as the devil's disciples; furthermore, he had sternly
imposed this faith upon his children.
Mostyn had never accepted his father's views, though he did not
dispute them.  He liked horses without understanding them, and he had
a good seat in the saddle, though his opportunities for riding were
few and far between.  It was natural that he should have a more open
mind than either of his two elder brothers, James and Charles, for
they had been brought up at home under their father's influence,
while Mostyn had enjoyed an Eton and Oxford education, this being due
to the intervention of his mother, now dead, who had probably vaguely
realised that her elder sons were developing into prigs.
Mostyn, however, so far had respected his father's prejudices.  He
had never risked a penny in gambling of any sort; he had refused all
invitations to attend race meetings; he had even avoided the theatre,
this because he felt it his duty as his father's son.  It was not an
easy task for him, for his instincts were all towards the natural
enjoyment of life: he was just a healthy-minded, well-intentioned
young Englishman with nothing of the prig about him.  Luckily for
himself he developed a taste for athletics, and so by his prowess on
the river and in the football field he gained respect both at school
and University, and his prejudices were overlooked or readily
forgiven.  Mostyn never confided to anyone, till Pierce came upon the
scene, how irksome these restraints were to him, how his inmost soul
militated against them.
It was after he came down from Oxford and set to work to study for
the Bar that he met Pierce Trelawny.  Pierce was already engaged to
Cicely, Mostyn's sister, though the match had not met with the
unqualified approval of John Clithero, who considered the young man
worldly-minded and fast because he went to theatres and attended
race-meetings; and besides, the whole Trelawny family were