CHAPTER XXXIV 



NEWSPAPER WINDOW-DRESSING 



Systems' Syndicate with Arthur ColUns and Harvey Du Cros — Busted — 

 The only Real Solution — My Sale of Cricket Bats — Race-horses 

 for Charity — Dam of an Oaks Winner for Twenty-three Guineas — 

 Sir Thomas Dewar and his Forgotten Horse — Lord Derby's Sug- 

 gestions — " The Walrus " 



In coming to the end of a season, as just referred to, 

 there are occasions of great depression. There are the 

 inevitable retrospects of missed chances, and a feeling 

 of dullness that we are marking time for a month or 

 two until there shall be some real form to make us take 

 notice in view of the Grand National. In the winter 

 there is a slack sort of feeling up to Christmas, which 

 takes care of itself. It is quite all right if the bank-roll 

 is respectable, but a disastrous back-end can lead to all 

 sorts of inconveniences. This was the time, as I 

 mentioned in an earlier chapter, that the public re- 

 quired amusing, and I used to look about for a feature 

 which should entertain them. Systems became a 

 topic which was always a drawing card, but I am afraid 

 that I have been more than once hoisted very high in 

 the air and come down with a flop after I had become 

 ultra-enthusiastic about the results of one of my pets. 

 I have studied them very closely, and on various 

 occasions — on paper, mark you — they have worked 

 remarkably. So much so that one evening a few years 

 ago I happened to mention to Arthur Collins, of Drury 

 Lane, and Harvey Du Cros, in answer to a question, 

 that I believed I had discovered a real money-maker. 

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