CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH FOUR-LEGS MAKE MUCH ANXIETY FOR TWO-LEGS AND SIR GASTON DEVELOPS OCCULT GIFTS

"Well," said Dollie, later in the afternoon, "how do we stand? I personally am forty pounds down. Farrar here is fifteen pounds down. Falconer, having neglected my advice, is several pounds to the good. Mrs. Falconer and Mrs. Farrar, having had the good sense to ignore form and the prophets, and to bet entirely on combinations of colour, have made a little, and Ann saved her face. But if we are going to make anything we must do it now. You study the card while Farrar and I go and do some intelligent eavesdropping."

On their returning they brought news of a likely outsider named Crumpet, ridden by one of the most successful jockeys of the day.

"I've put my shirt on him," said Dollie, "both ways. If he wins I make a lot; if he's only placed I get back my dropped forty."

"And if he loses?" I said.

"We will draw a veil," Dollie replied. "But my favourite poison is prussic and apollinaris."

"Here you are," said Ann Ingleside quietly. "Please put this half-sovereign for me on Witch Hazel to win."

"Why Witch Hazel?" Dollie asked.

"I fancy him," she said.

"Any other orders?" Dollie asked.

"Yes," I said, "here is a five pound note and a sovereign. Heaven knows I need both, but if they go it will make a picturesque topic on which to converse at dinners and such places, and if I win, I dare say I shall find something to do with it. I want you to put four pounds on Ratton's mount for a place, and two pounds to win."

"Why Ratton's?" Dollie asked. Our independence was beginning to tell on him.

"Because Ratton hasn't had a win to-day, and he is in the habit of doing better than that. He will ride like a demon this time because it's the last chance."

"Very well," said Dollie. "But why I've been wasting my breath instructing you about racing, I shall never understand."

Naomi produced ten shillings and asked for it to be put on my horse, five shillings each way.

Downstairs ran Dollie, and we watched him moving from one group to another seeking the largest price--or at least we thought we did, for, from a box at Epsom, every young man in the ring looks alike.

It was a race that I shall never forget. The other races Dollie had watched stolidly enough; but here, with so much at stake, he gave in and disappeared from the room. Men seem to be affected very differently. Some hate to see the horses at all, after the start, and at the close come out of retirement to know the result; others watch every step through their glasses, and either learn their fate early or do not know it till the post; some are silent; others shout instructions to the horses and their riders, quite oblivious to the fact that they are a mile away doing their best.

The field in this race kept very closely together and the horses passed us in a mass of brown and silk from which our eyes could distinguish nothing definite. So we had to wait for the numbers, which went up like this

9 3 7

9 was Palimpsest, ridden by Ratton; 3 was Witch Hazel, and 7 was Crumpet. Dollie came in at this moment and glanced at the board.

"Good Heavens," he said, "I've just scraped in, but Falconer's on to the winner. And 3--who's 3?"

"Witch Hazel," said Ann.

"Perhaps you'll tell me," said Dollie, "why you fixed on such an outsider as that?"

"Because," said his betrothed, "Mrs. Boody, our housekeeper, always says that if you're ever in doubt what to do you should try Witch Hazel. I mean when you've hurt yourself."

"Why didn't you tell me that?" Dollie asked with some spirit.

"Because tips of that kind are such personal things. They don't work for others. Anyway, you're all square."

"Yes, but I could only get 3 to 1 for a place on Crumpet, while I got you 4½ to 1. But if I don't hurry we shan't get even what we have won."

Dollie returned laden with gold and five pound notes, which he distributed. To Ann he gave two pounds, fifteen shillings which she took with a little pout, remarking, "If only I'd put it on to win!" while Naomi, when he gave her her ill-gotten gains, remarked, "If only I'd made it a sovereign!"

"Ah," said Sir Gaston, "what you ought to say is, 'If only I hadn't bet at all.' There's an insidious poison in that money. Mark my words. Some day if you go on like this you'll be on the staff of the _Star_ or become a secret cocoa-drinker. If you go to my overcoat, Ann," he continued, "and feel in the right-hand pocket, you'll find the card I marked before this race."

Ann fetched it and gave it to her father. '"I don't insist on your believing me," he said, "but it is true none the less. While you were making up your minds how to lay out your money, I tried my luck at spotting the winner, and here's the result."

He held out the card and, to our astonishment and almost to Dollie's permanent and tragic undoing, we saw that he had named not only the winner but the second horse as well.

"My hat, sir," cried Dollie, "how did you do that?"

Sir Gaston looked inscrutable.

"No, but do tell us," Naomi said. "It's like magic."

"Well," said Sir Gaston, "I'll tell you. But you'll keep the secret, I hope. I first placed the race-card on the table--you could have seen me if you hadn't all been so consumed by the lust for money. I then took my pencil in my right hand, held the card with my left, closed my eyes, and made a dot at random. That was the first horse. Then I made dots for the other two, and you behold the result--two right out of three."

"But why didn't you back your fancy?" Dollie asked. "You've thrown away a fortune."

"For two reasons," said Sir Gaston. "One is that I never bet and don't want to. And the other is that I had no confidence in my prescience."

"Will you try the same thing for me for the Oaks on Friday?" Dollie asked.

"Certainly--if you will promise me something."

"Well?"

"Not to bet on the result."

"Oh, but that's what I want it for."

"Yes, but such lucky shots don't come off twice in one week."

The Farrars came back at this moment in very low spirits, for they had had bad luck all day.

"Well," I said, "I'm rolling, anyway. And you're all going to dine with me to-night and the balance shall go to the hospitals--as though I had won it in France."

"But why don't you follow your luck and put in on a horse?" Dollie gasped.

"Not for another year," I said. "I bet only at the Derby. I couldn't stand the wear and tear of it oftener. It's too exciting. My heart is beating at this moment like a propeller. I want a quiet life. Besides, think of Naomi--you know the miseries in store for a gambler's wife. And another thing--I have it very clearly fixed at the back of my head--and nothing that I have seen to-day alters the feeling--that there is nothing to pluck on a race-course but Dead Sea fruit."

"We will now sing hymn one hundred and forty-two," said Dollie, with great solemnity; "Wow-wow!"

I approached Farrar with an expression of sympathy for his losses.

"Oh, that's nothing," he replied. "I'm still on the right side for the year and I'll pull this round safe enough. Things look blackest before the dawn, don't you know."

"If you take to proverbs," said Sir Gaston, who was standing by, "you'll never know where you are, for there's a neutralizer for every one of them."

"I can give Farrar an example," I said, "that will take some neutralizing--'The grey mare's the better horse.'"

Farrar groaned, but his wife laughed.

"Thank you, Mr. Falconer," she said; "what a pretty compliment!"

Which only shows how we stumble on some of our neatest things.