FIRST MEETING WITH ROBERT SIEVIER 



narrowness, and of course on the " grey " days I have 

 spoken of he would wear white spats. I tell you he was 

 some swell, and of course was easily spotted when he 

 first came racing in Australia. Some of the nuts made 

 a dead set for him, but gave him up as no good. I tell 

 you, how he escaped in those clothes the gibes of the 

 larrikins is difficult to say. He was one of those 

 mystery men who occasionally " blew " in on us from 

 the boats. He was supposed to have a lot of stuff, and 

 betted freely from meeting to meeting, establishing 

 his credit. One day up at Sale in Gippsland, Joe 

 Thompson said to him over the dinner-table in the 

 evening of the first day's racing : " Had a good day, 

 Mr Lammerse." " Cleaned up a monkey, Thompson. 

 I haven't really been betting," he replied. Sievier 

 and I were there and Bob said to me : " This is a wonder- 

 ful fellow to be able to pick 'em like that, why can't 

 you do it? You've been here longer than I have or 

 he has." I tried the next day and might have got 

 my monkey, but after winning over the first two races 

 about fifty was content to stop at that. That's the 

 worst of being a piker, as they say in America. When 

 I win a bit of real " go-on-with " stuff I have to stop. 

 Lammerse was looking down his nose that evening 

 when we started back on the three or four hour 

 journey to Melbourne. While I think of it, it was at 

 this meeting that Joe Thompson had a little argument 

 with the judge. He hoisted the wrong number and 

 subsequently changed it. " You can't do that, Mr 

 Bernard," shouted out Joe. '' You've left it quite 

 a minute." For a moment the judge was actually 

 nonplussed, and Thompson was such a personality 

 that he had to be temporised with. However, eventu- 

 ally, of course, the judge had his way. It was shortly 

 after this that a big lot of sportsmen went up to the 



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