8o RACING. 



parched throats, where Jarvis crowns the misty goblet with 

 spurious aUiance of Schweppe and Cognac. . . . 



' You can't be drunk, seeing it is yet but the third hour of 

 the day, so you must be dreaming. Rouse up, patriarch, and 

 attend to business.' 



Sir Laudator gives a start and awakens to the fact that he 

 is some score of years older than he has been during the last 

 few minutes ; that his young friend Lord Olim Juvabit, who 

 addressed the above admonition, is regarding him with astonish- 

 ment ; that the Middle Park Plate is next on the card, and the 

 jockeys already weighing out for that event ; and that Lord 

 Olim has therein engaged a horse called Paul Pry of no 

 mean pretensions, on whom he, Sir Laudator, contemplates 

 * putting down his maximum,' a sum modest when compared 

 with the plunges of his earlier days, yet withal worthy of being 

 dignified with the title of a ' dash.' 



' Come on,' says Lord Olim, taking his companion's arm 

 and leading him forth, ' we may as well have a look at Paul, 

 hear what Mat has to say about him, and find out how much 

 he means standing ; and then look here, old fellow ' — dropping 

 his voice into the orthodox private information key — 'as I. 

 rather fancy myself this journey, I shall give my job to 

 Perkins to do at the back of the ring ; we shall have time for a 

 bit of lunch before the start, and as you will want something 

 on for yourself, you can work the boys down the rails, and put 

 two hundred on for me at the same time. We shan't get much 

 of a price on account of Archer being up, still Romanus 

 will be favourite, and they'll lay some sort of odds against mine. 

 Of course if I win I shall be told that the American got all 

 the money, and equally, of course, if I'm beaten, people will say 

 that he got at everybody in the stable, myself included, and 

 made a fortune by laying. We'll chance all that.' 



He concludes his words of wisdom as they enter the Bird- 

 cage, still so-called, though how different from the lightly-wired 

 poultry run of two decades ago ! The paddock is thronged 

 with men, women, and horses, the bipeds unmistakably on 



