Chapter 30

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_ CHAPTER XXX

The "King's Head" was an humble place in the old-fashioned style. The house must have been built two hundred years, and the bar seemed as if it had been dug out of the house. The floor was some inches lower than the street, and the ceiling was hardly more than a couple of feet above the head of a tall man. Nor was it divided by numerous varnished partitions, according to the latest fashion. There were but three. The private entrance was in Dean Street, where a few swells came over from the theatre and called for brandies-and-sodas. There was a little mahogany what-not on the counter, and Esther served her customers between the little shelves. The public entrance and the jug and bottle entrance were in a side street. There was no parlour for special customers at the back, and the public bar was inconveniently crowded by a dozen people. The "King's Head" was not an up-to-date public-house. It had, however, one thing in its favour--it was a free house, and William said they had only to go on supplying good stuff, and trade would be sure to come back to them. For their former partner had done them much harm by systematic adulteration, and a little way down the street a new establishment, with painted tiles and brass lamps, had been opened, and was attracting all the custom of the neighbourhood. She was more anxious than William to know what loss the books showed; she was jealous of the profits of his turf account, and when he laughed at her she said, "But you're never here in the daytime, you do not have these empty bars staring you in the face morning and afternoon." And then she would tell him: a dozen pots of beer about dinner-time, a few glasses of bitter--there had been a rehearsal over the way--and that was about all.

The bars were empty, and the public-house dozed through the heavy heat of a summer afternoon. Esther sat behind the bar sewing, waiting for Jackie to come home from school. William was away at Newmarket. The clock struck five and Jackie peeped through the doors, dived under the counter, and ran into his mother's arms.

"Well, did you get full marks to-day?"

"Yes, mummie, I got full marks."

"That's a good boy--and you want your tea?"

"Yes, mummie; I'm that hungry I could hardly walk home."

"Hardly walk home! What, as bad as that?"

"Yes, mummie. There's a new shop open in Oxford Street. The window is all full of boats. Do you think that if all the favourites were to be beaten for a month, father would buy me one?"

"I thought you was so hungry you couldn't walk home, dear?"

"Well, mummie, so I was, but----"

Esther laughed. "Well, come this way and have your tea." She went into the parlour and rang the bell.

"Mummie, may I have buttered toast?"

"Yes, dear, you may."

"And may I go downstairs and help Jane to make it?"

"Yes, you can do that too; it will save her the trouble of coming up. Let me take off your coat--give me your hat; now run along, and help Jane to make the toast."

Esther opened a glass door, curtained with red silk; it led from the bar to the parlour, a tiny room, hardly larger than the private bar, holding with difficulty a small round table, three chairs, an arm-chair, a cupboard. In the morning a dusty window let in a melancholy twilight, but early in the afternoon it became necessary to light the gas. Esther took a cloth from the cupboard, and laid the table for Jackie's tea. He came up the kitchen stairs telling Jane how many marbles he had won, and at that moment voices were heard in the bar.

It was William, tall and gaunt, buttoned up in a grey frock-coat, a pair of field glasses slung over his shoulders. He was with his clerk, Ted Blamy, a feeble, wizen little man, dressed in a shabby tweed suit, covered with white dust.

"Put that bag down, Teddy, and come and have a drink."

Esther saw at once that things had not gone well with him.

"Have the favourites been winning?"

"Yes, every bloody one. Five first favourites straight off the reel, three yesterday, and two second favourites the day before. By God, no man can stand up against it. Come, what'll you have to drink, Teddy?"

"A little whisky, please, guv'nor."

The men had their drink. Then William told Teddy to take his bag upstairs, and he followed Esther into the parlour. She could see that he had been losing heavily, but she refrained from asking questions.

"Now, Jackie, you keep your father company; tell him how you got on at school. I'm going downstairs to look after his dinner."

"Don't you mind about my dinner, Esther, don't you trouble; I was thinking of dining at a restaurant. I'll be back at nine."

"Then I'll see nothing of you. We've hardly spoken to one another this week; all the day you're away racing, and in the evening you're talking to your friends over the bar. We never have a moment alone."

"Yes, Esther, I know; but the truth is, I'm a bit down in the mouth. I've had a very bad week. The favourites has been winning, and I overlaid my book against Wheatear; I'd heard that she was as safe as 'ouses. I'll meet some pals down at the 'Cri'; it will cheer me up."

Seeing how disappointed she was, he hesitated, and asked what there was for dinner. "A sole and a nice piece of steak; I'm sure you'll like it. I've a lot to talk to you about. Do stop, Bill, to please me." She was very winning in her quiet, grave way, so he took her in his arms, kissed her, and said he would stop, that no one could cook a sole as she could, that it gave him an appetite to think of it.

"And may I stop with father while you are cooking his dinner?" said Jackie.

"Yes, you can do that; but you must go to bed when I bring it upstairs. I want to talk with father then."

Jackie seemed quite satisfied with this arrangement, but when Esther came upstairs with the sole, and was about to hand him over to Jane, he begged lustily to be allowed to remain until father had finished his fish. "It won't matter to you," he said; "you've to go downstairs to fry the steak."

But when she came up with the steak he was unwilling as ever to leave. She said he must go to bed, and he knew from her tone that argument was useless. As a last consolation, she promised him that she would come upstairs and kiss him before he went to sleep.

"You will come, won't you, mummie? I shan't go to sleep till you do." Esther and William both laughed, and Esther was pleased, for she was still a little jealous of his love for his father.

"Come along," Jackie cried to Jane, and he ran upstairs, chattering to her about the toys he had seen in Oxford Street. Charles was lighting the gas, and Esther had to go into the bar to serve some customers. When she returned, William was smoking his pipe. Her dinner had had its effect, he had forgotten his losses, and was willing to tell her the news. He had a bit of news for her. He had seen Ginger; Ginger had come up as cordial as you like, and had asked him what price he was laying.

"Did he bet with you?"

"Yes, I laid him ten pounds to five."

Once more William began to lament his luck. "You'll have better luck to-morrow," she said. "The favourites can't go on winning. Tell me about Ginger."

"There isn't much to tell. We'd a little chat. He knew all about the little arrangement, the five hundred, you know, and laughed heartily. Peggy's married. I've forgotten the chap's name."

"The one that you kicked downstairs?"

"No, not him; I can't think of it. No matter, Ginger remembered you; he wished us luck, took the address, and said he'd come in to-night to see you if he possibly could. I don't think he's been doing too well lately, if he had he'd been more stand-offish. I saw Jimmy White--you remember Jim, the little fellow we used to call the Demon, 'e that won the Stewards' Cup on Silver Braid?... Didn't you and 'e 'ave a tussle together at the end of dinner--the first day you come down from town?"

"The second day it was."

"You're right, it was the second day. The first day I met you in the avenue I was leaning over the railings having a smoke, and you come along with a heavy bundle and asked me the way. I wasn't in service at that time. Good Lord, how time does slip by! It seems like yesterday.... And after all those years to meet you as you was going to the public for a jug of beer, and 'ere we are man and wife sitting side by side in our own 'ouse."

Esther had been in the "King's Head" now nearly a year. The first Mrs. Latch had got her divorce without much difficulty; and Esther had begun to realise that she had got a good husband long before they slipped round to the nearest registry office and came back man and wife.

Charles opened the door. "Mr. Randal is in the bar, sir, and would like to have a word with you."

"All right," said William. "Tell him I'm coming into the bar presently." Charles withdrew. "I'm afraid," said William, lowering his voice, "that the old chap is in a bad way. He's been out of a place a long while, and will find it 'ard to get back again. Once yer begin to age a bit, they won't look at you. We're both well out of business."

Mr. Randal sat in his favourite corner by the wall, smoking his clay. He wore a large frock-coat, vague in shape, pathetically respectable. The round hat was greasy round the edges, brown and dusty on top. The shirt was clean but unstarched, and the thin throat was tied with an old black silk cravat. He looked himself, the old servant out of situation--the old servant who would never be in situation again.

"Been 'aving an 'ell of a time at Newmarket," said William; "favourites romping in one after the other."

"I saw that the favourites had been winning. But I know of something, a rank outsider, for the Leger. I got the letter this morning. I thought I'd come round and tell yer."

"Much obliged, old mate, but it don't do for me to listen to such tales; we bookmakers must pay no attention to information, no matter how correct it may be.... Much obliged all the same. What are you drinking?"

"I've not finished my glass yet." He tossed off the last mouthful.

"The same?" said William.

"Yes, thank you."

William drew two glasses of porter. "Here's luck." The men nodded, drank, and then William turned to speak to a group at the other end of the bar. "One moment," John said, touching William on the shoulder. "It is the best tip I ever had in my life. I 'aven't forgotten what I owe you, and if this comes off I'll be able to pay you all back. Lay the odds, twenty sovereigns to one against--" Old John looked round to see that no one was within ear-shot, then he leant forward and whispered the horse's name in William's ear. William laughed. "If you're so sure about it as all that," he said, "I'd sooner lend you the quid to back the horse elsewhere."

"Will you lend me a quid?"

"Lend you a quid and five first favourites romping in one after another!--you must take me for Baron Rothschild. You think because I've a public-house I'm coining money; well, I ain't. It's cruel the business we do here. You wouldn't believe it, and you know that better liquor can't be got in the neighbourhood." Old John listened with the indifference of a man whose life is absorbed in one passion and who can interest himself with nothing else. Esther asked him after Mrs. Randal and his children, but conversation on the subject was always disagreeable to him, and he passed it over with few words. As soon as Esther moved away he leant forward and whispered, "Lay me twelve pounds to ten shillings. I'll be sure to pay you; there's a new restaurant going to open in Oxford Street and I'm going to apply for the place of headwaiter."

"Yes, but will you get it?" William answered brutally. He did not mean to be unkind, but his nature was as hard and as plain as a kitchen-table. The chin dropped into the unstarched collar and the old-fashioned necktie, and old John continued smoking unnoticed by any one. Esther looked at him. She saw he was down on his luck, and she remembered the tall, melancholy, pale-faced woman whom she had met weeping by the sea-shore the day that Silver Braid had won the cup. She wondered what had happened to her, in what corner did she live, and where was the son that John Randal had not allowed to enter the Barfield establishment as page-boy, thinking he would be able to make something better of him than a servant.

The regular customers had begun to come in. Esther greeted them with nods and smiles of recognition. She drew the beer two glasses at once in her hand, and picked up little zinc measures, two and four of whisky, and filled them from a small tap. She usually knew the taste of her customers. When she made a mistake she muttered "stupid," and Mr. Ketley was much amused at her forgetting that he always drank out of the bottle; he was one of the few who came to the "King's Head" who could afford sixpenny whisky. "I ought to have known by this time," she said. "Well, mistakes will occur in the best regulated families," the little butterman replied. He was meagre and meek, with a sallow complexion and blond beard. His pale eyes were anxious, and his thin, bony hands restless. His general manner was oppressed, and he frequently raised his hat to wipe his forehead, which was high and bald. At his elbow stood Journeyman, Ketley's very opposite. A tall, harsh, angular man, long features, a dingy complexion, and the air of a dismissed soldier. He held a glass of whisky-and-water in a hairy hand, and bit at the corner of a brown moustache. He wore a threadbare black frock-coat, and carried a newspaper under his arm. Ketley and Journeyman held widely different views regarding the best means of backing horses. Ketley was preoccupied with dreams and omens; Journeyman, a clerk in the parish registry office, studied public form; he was guided by it in all his speculations, and paid little heed to the various rumours always afloat regarding private trials. Public form he admitted did not always come out right, but if a man had a headpiece and could remember all the running, public form was good enough to follow. Racing with Journeyman was a question of calculation, and great therefore was his contempt for the weak and smiling Ketley, whom he went for on all occasions. But Ketley was pluckier than his appearance indicated, and the duels between the two were a constant source of amusement in the bar of the "King's Head."

"Well, Herbert, the omen wasn't altogether up to the mark this time," said Journeyman, with a malicious twinkle in his small brown eyes.

"No, it was one of them unfortunate accidents."

"One of them unfortunate accidents," repeated Journeyman, derisively; "what's accidents to do with them that 'as to do with the reading of omens? I thought they rose above such trifles as weights, distances, bad riding.... A stone or two should make no difference if the omen is right."

Ketley was no way put out by the slight titter that Journeyman's retort had produced in the group about the bar. He drank his whisky-and-water deliberately, like one, to use a racing expression, who had been over the course before.

"I've 'eard that argument. I know all about it, but it don't alter me. Too many strange things occur for me to think that everything can be calculated with a bit of lead-pencil in a greasy pocket-book."

"What has the grease of my pocket-book to do with it?" replied Journeyman, looking round. The company smiled and nodded. "You says that signs and omens is above any calculation of weights. Never mind the pocket-book, greasy or not greasy; you says that these omens is more to be depended on than the best stable information."

"I thought that you placed no reliance on stable information, and that you was guided by the weights that you calculated in that 'ere pocket-book."

"What's my pocket-book to do with it? You want to see my pocket-book; well, here it is, and I'll bet two glasses of beer that it ain't greasier than any other pocket-book in this bar."

"I don't see meself what pocket-books, greasy or not greasy, has to do with it," said William. "Walter put a fair question to Herbert. The omen didn't come out right, and Walter wanted to know why it didn't come out right."

"That was it," said Journeyman.

All eyes were now fixed on Ketley. "You want to know why the omen wasn't right? I'll tell you--because it was no omen at all, that's why. The omens always comes right; it is we who aren't always in the particular state of mind that allows us to read the omens right." Journeyman shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. Ketley looked at him with the same expression of placid amusement. "You'd like me to explain; well, I will. The omen is always right, but we aren't always in the state of mind for the reading of the omen. You think that ridiculous, Walter; but why should omens differ from other things? Some days we can get through our accounts in 'alf the time we can at other times, the mind being clearer. I asks all present if that is not so."

Ketley had got hold of his audience, and Journeyman's remark about closing time only provoked a momentary titter. Ketley looked long and steadily at Journeyman and then said, "Perhaps closing time won't do no more for your calculation of weights than for my omens.... I know them jokes, we've 'eard them afore; but I'm not making jokes; I'm talking serious." The company nodded approval. "I was saying there was times when the mind is fresh like the morning. That's the time for them what 'as got the gift of reading the omens. It is a sudden light that comes into the mind, and it points straight like a ray of sunlight, if there be nothing to stop it.... Now do you understand?" No one had understood, but all felt that they were on the point of understanding. "The whole thing is in there being nothing to interrupt the light."

"But you says yourself that yer can't always read them," said Journeyman; "an accident will send you off on the wrong tack, so it all comes to the same thing, omens or no omens."

"A man will trip over a piece of wire laid across the street, but that don't prove he can't walk, do it, Walter?"

Walter was unable to say that it did not, and so Ketley scored another point over his opponent. "I made a mistake, I know I did, and if it will help you to understand I'll tell you how it was made. Three weeks ago I was in this 'ere bar 'aving what I usually takes. It was a bit early; none of you fellows had come in. I don't think it was much after eight. The governor was away in the north racin'--hadn't been 'ome for three or four days; the missus was beginning to look a bit lonely." Ketley smiled and glanced at Esther, who had told Charles to serve some customers, and was listening as intently as the rest. "I'd 'ad a nice bit of supper, and was just feeling that fresh and clear 'eaded as I was explaining to you just now is required for the reading, thinking of nothing in perticler, when suddenly the light came. I remembered a conversation I 'ad with a chap about American corn. He wouldn't 'ear of the Government taxing corn to 'elp the British farmer. Well, that conversation came back to me as clear as if the dawn had begun to break. I could positively see the bloody corn; I could pretty well 'ave counted it. I felt there was an omen about somewhere, and all of a tremble I took up the paper; it was lying on the bar just where your hand is, Walter. But at that moment, just as I was about to cast my eye down the list of 'orses, a cab comes down the street as 'ard as it could tear. There was but two or three of us in the bar, and we rushed out--the shafts was broke, 'orse galloping and kicking, and the cabby 'olding on as 'ard as he could. But it was no good, it was bound to go, and over it went against the kerb. The cabby, poor chap, was pretty well shook to pieces; his leg was broke, and we'd to 'elp to take him to the hosspital. Now I asks if it was no more than might be expected that I should have gone wrong about the omen. Next day, as luck would have it, I rolled up 'alf a pound of butter in a piece of paper on which 'Cross Roads' was written."

"But if there had been no accident and you 'ad looked down the list of 'orses, 'ow do yer know that yer would 'ave spotted the winner?"

"What, not Wheatear, and with all that American corn in my 'ead? Is it likely I'd've missed it?"

No one answered, and Ketley drank his whisky in the midst of a most thoughtful silence. At last one of the group said, and he seemed to express the general mind of the company--

"I don't know if omens be worth a-following of, but I'm blowed if 'orses be worth backing if the omens is again them."

His neighbour answered, "And they do come wonderful true occasional. They 'as 'appened to me, and I daresay to all 'ere present." The company nodded. "You've noticed how them that knows nothing at all about 'orses--the less they knows the better their luck--will look down the lot and spot the winner from pure fancy--the name that catches their eyes as likely."

"There's something in it," said a corpulent butcher with huge, pursy, prominent eyes and a portentous stomach. "I always held with going to church, and I hold still more with going to church since I backed Vanity for the Chester Cup. I was a-falling asleep over the sermon, when suddenly I wakes up hearing, 'Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity.'"

Several similar stories were told, and then various systems for backing horses were discussed. "You don't believe that no 'orses is pulled?" said Mr. Stack, the porter at Sutherland Mansions, Oxford Street, a large, bluff man, wearing a dark blue square-cut frock coat with brass buttons. A curious-looking man, with red-stained skin, dark beady eyes, a scanty growth of beard, and a loud, assuming voice. "You don't believe that no 'orses is pulled?" he reiterated.

"I didn't say that no 'orse was never pulled," said Journeyman. He stood with his back leaning against the partition, his long legs stretched out. "If one was really in the know, then I don't say nothing about it; but who of us is ever really in the know?"

"I'm not so sure about that," said Mr. Stack. "There's a young man in my mansions that 'as a servant; this servant's cousin, a girl in the country, keeps company with one of the lads in the White House stable. If that ain't good enough, I don't know what is; good enough for my half-crown and another pint of beer too, Mrs. Latch, as you'll be that kind."

Esther drew the beer, and Old John, who had said nothing till now, suddenly joined in the conversation. He too had heard of something; he didn't know if it was the same as Stack had heard of; he didn't expect it was. It couldn't very well be, 'cause no one knew of this particular horse, not a soul!--not 'alf-a-dozen people in the world. No, he would tell no one until his money and the stable money was all right. And he didn't care for no half-crowns or dollars this time, if he couldn't get a sovereign or two on the horse he'd let it alone. This time he'd be a man or a mouse. Every one was listening intently, but old John suddenly assumed an air of mystery and refused to say another word. The conversation worked back whither it had started, and again the best method of backing horses was passionately discussed. Interrupting someone whose theories seemed intolerably ludicrous, Journeyman said--

"Let's 'ear what's the governor's opinion; he ought to know what kind of backer gets the most out of him."

Journeyman's proposal to submit the question to the governor met with very general approval. Even the vagrant who had taken his tankard of porter to the bench where he could drink and eat what fragments of food he had collected, came forward, interested to know what kind of backer got most out of the bookmaker.

"Well," said William, "I haven't been making a book as long as some of them, but since you ask me what I think I tell you straight. I don't care a damn whether they backs according to their judgment, or their dreams, or their fancy. The cove that follows favourites, or the cove that backs a jockey's mount, the cove that makes an occasional bet when he hears of a good thing, the cove that bets regular, 'cording to a system--the cove, yer know, what doubles every time--or the cove that bets as the mood takes him--them and all the other coves, too numerous to be mentioned, I'm glad to do business with. I cries out to one as 'eartily as to another: 'The old firm, the old firm, don't forget the old firm.... What can I do for you to-day, sir?' There's but one sort of cove I can't abide."

"And he is--" said Journeyman.

"He is Mr. George Buff."

"Who's he? who's he?" asked several; and the vagrant caused some amusement by the question, "Do 'e bet on the course?"

"Yes, he do," said William, "an' nowhere else. He's at every meeting as reg'lar as if he was a bookie himself. I 'ates to see his face.... I'd be a rich man if I'd all the money that man 'as 'ad out of me in the last three years."

"What should you say was his system?" asked Mr. Stack.

"I don't know no more than yerselves."

This admission seemed a little chilling; for everyone had thought himself many steps nearer El Dorado.

"But did you ever notice," said Mr. Ketley, "that there was certain days on which he bet?"

"No, I never noticed that."

"Are they outsiders that he backs?" asked Stack.

"No, only favourites. But what I can't make out is that there are times when he won't touch them; and when he don't, nine times out of ten they're beaten."

"Are the 'orses he backs what you'd call well in?" said Journeyman.

"Not always."

"Then it must be on information from the stable authorities?" said Stack.

"I dun know," said William; "have it that way if you like, but I'm glad there ain't many about like him. I wish he'd take his custom elsewhere. He gives me the solid hump, he do."

"What sort of man should you say he was? 'as he been a servant, should you say?" asked old John.

"I can't tell you what he is. Always new suit of clothes and a hie-glass. Whenever I see that 'ere hie-glass and that brown beard my heart goes down in my boots. When he don't bet he takes no notice, walks past with a vague look on his face, as if he didn't see the people, and he don't care that for the 'orses. Knowing he don't mean no business, I cries to him, 'The best price, Mr. Buff; two to one on the field, ten to one bar two or three.' He just catches his hie-glass tighter in eye and looks at me, smiles, shakes his head, and goes on. He is a warm 'un; he is just about as 'ot as they make 'em."

"What I can't make out," said Journeyman, "is why he bets on the course. You say he don't know nothing about horses. Why don't he remain at 'ome and save the exes?"

"I've thought of all that," said William, "and can't make no more out of it than you can yerselves. All we know is that, divided up between five or six of us, Buff costs not far short of six 'undred a year."

At that moment a small blond man came into the bar. Esther knew him at once. It was Ginger. He had hardly changed at all--a little sallower, a little dryer, a trifle less like a gentleman.

"Won't you step round, sir, to the private bar?" said William. "You'll be more comfortable."

"Hardly worth while. I was at the theatre, and I thought I'd come in and have a look round.... I see that you haven't forgotten the old horses," he said, catching sight of the prints of Silver Braid and Summer's Dean which William had hung on the wall. "That was a great day, wasn't it? Fifty to one chance, started at thirty; and you remember the Gaffer tried him to win with twenty pound more than he had to carry.... Hullo, John! very glad to see you again; growing strong and well, I hope?"

The old servant looked so shabby that Esther was not surprised that Ginger did not shake hands with him. She wondered if he would remember her, and as the thought passed through her mind he extended his hand across the bar.

"I 'ope I may have the honour of drinking a glass of wine with you, sir," said William. Ginger raised no objection, and William told Esther to go down-stairs and fetch up a bottle of champagne.

Ketley, Journeyman, Stack, and the others listened eagerly. To meet the celebrated gentleman-rider was a great event in their lives. But the conversation was confined to the Barfield horses; it was carried on by the merest allusion, and Journeyman wearied of it. He said he must be getting home; the others nodded, finished their glasses, and bade William good-night as they left. A couple of flower-girls with loose hair, shawls, and trays of flowers, suggestive of streetfaring, came in and ordered four ale. They spoke to the vagrant, who collected his match-boxes in preparation for a last search for charity. William cut the wires of the champagne, and at that moment Charles, who had gone through with the ladder to turn out the street lamp, returned with a light overcoat on his arm which he said a cove outside wanted to sell him for two-and-six.

"Do you know him?" said William.

"Yes, I knowed him. I had to put him out the other night--Bill Evans, the cove that wears the blue Melton."

The swing doors were opened, and a man between thirty and forty came in. He was about the medium height; a dark olive skin, black curly hair, picturesque and disreputable, like a bird of prey in his blue Melton jacket and billycock hat.

"You'd better 'ave the coat," he said; "you won't better it;" and coming into the bar he planked down a penny as if it were a sovereign. "Glass of porter; nice warm weather, good for the 'arvest. Just come up from the country--a bit dusty, ain't I?"

"Ain't you the chap," said William, "what laid Mr. Ketley six 'alf-crowns to one against Cross Roads?"

Charles nodded, and William continued--

"I like your cheek coming into my bar."

"No harm done, gov'nor; no one was about; wouldn't 'ave done it if they had."

"That'll do," said William. "... No, he don't want the coat. We likes to know where our things comes from."

Bill Evans finished his glass. "Good-night, guv'nor; no ill-feeling."

The flower-girls laughed; one offered him a flower. "Take it for love," she said. He was kind enough to do so, and the three went out together.

"I don't like the looks of that chap," said William, and he let go the champagne cork. "Yer health, sir." They raised their glasses, and the conversation turned on next week's racing.

"I dun know about next week's events," said old John, "but I've heard of something for the Leger--an outsider will win."

"Have you backed it?"

"I would if I had the money, but things have been going very unlucky with me lately. But I'd advise you, sir, to have a trifle on. It's the best tip I 'ave had in my life."

"Really!" said Ginger, beginning to feel interested, "so I will, and so shall you. I'm damned if you shan't have your bit on. Come, what is it? William will lay the odds. What is it?"

"Briar Rose, the White House stable, sir."

"Why, I thought that--"

"No such thing, sir; Briar Rose's the one."

Ginger took up the paper. "Twenty-five to one Briar Rose taken."

"You see, sir, it was taken."

"Will you lay the price, William--twenty-five half-sovereigns to one?"

"Yes, I'll lay it."

Ginger took a half-sovereign from his pocket and handed it to the bookmaker.

"I never take money over this bar. You're good for a thin 'un, sir," William said, with a smile, as he handed back the money.

"But I don't know when I shall see you again," said Ginger. "It will be very inconvenient. There's no one in the bar."

"None but the match-seller and them two flower-girls. I suppose they don't matter?"

Happiness flickered up through the old greyness of the face. Henceforth something to live for. Each morning bringing news of the horse, and the hours of the afternoon passing pleasantly, full of thoughts of the evening paper and the gossip of the bar. A bet on a race brings hope into lives which otherwise would be hopeless. _

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