330 'PROMISED LAND' AND 'DULCIBELLA' 



1 Most certainly,' I answered, ' or I would not have 

 tried the horses before you.' 



As we walked back to the carriage together, I again 

 broached the subject, which indeed was discussed in a 

 most serious mood. 



' We have not,' I said, ' a shilling on him ' (meaning 

 Bevis), ' but this may be soon done ; and what would 

 you like to stand on him, if I don't find anything that 

 can beat him ? or on that, if I do ?' 



' Ten pounds,' he replied, ' and Mr. Murphy will take 

 a hundred.' 



I said it should be done, and shortly afterwards he left 

 for town. Taking up the paper two days later, I saw the 

 following : ' Bevis was introduced into the Cesarewitch 

 betting at 100 to 1, but soon became a warm favourite, 

 and left off at 30 to 1. This was evidently a stable com- 

 mission.' Now from what has gone before, no one will 

 for a moment suppose that either I or the stable had 

 backed him, or that anyone else but Mr. Copperthwaite 

 himself had done so ; whilst everyone must be quite sure 

 that the headlong manner in which he had been uncere- 

 moniously introduced into the list of quotations would 

 only be equalled by the hasty method of his disappear- 

 ance from it. 



From this time Dulcibella gradually crept up in the 

 market. She was tried again, and I found her as good 

 as Schism at even weights, or two stone better than 

 Sutherland, which I regarded as one of the best things I 

 had ever seen. I need not perhaps say that, after Suther- 

 land had run at Doncaster, everyone there said he could 

 not have lost the Cesarewitch if only he had been entered 

 in it ; and, in short, I could only satisfy these commen- 

 tators by confessing that I had made ' a deplorable mis- 

 take.' In the race itself, which we now come to, nothing, 



