“If you ask me,” I said, “I think Steggles will try to nobble him before the race.”
“Good Lord! I never thought of that.” Bingo blenched. “You don’t think he would really do it?”
“I think he would have a jolly good try. Steggles is a bad man. From now on, Jeeves, we must watch Harold like hawks.”
“Undoubtedly, sir.”
“Ceaseless vigilance, what?”
“Precisely, sir.”
“You wouldn’t care to sleep in his room, Jeeves?”
“No, sir, I should not.”
“No, nor would I, if it comes to that. But dash it all,” I said, “we’re letting ourselves get rattled! We’re losing our nerve. This won’t do. How can Steggles possibly get at Harold, even if he wants to?”
There was no cheering young Bingo up. He’s one of those birds who simply leap at the morbid view, if you give them half a chance.
“There are all sorts of ways of nobbling favourites,” he said, in a sort of deathbed voice. “You ought to read some of these racing novels. In Pipped on the Post , Lord Jasper Mauleverer as near as a toucher outed Bonny Betsy by bribing the head lad to slip a cobra into her stable the night before the Derby!”
“What are the chances of a cobra biting Harold, Jeeves?”
“Slight, I should imagine, sir. And in such an event, knowing the boy as intimately as I do, my anxiety would be entirely for the snake.”