CHAPTER XL 



MORE RACING WRITERS 



" Robin Goodfellow's " Quotations — •' The Scout's " Double Duties — The 

 Sportsman Staff — Our Gentleman Rider — Flub-dub News Stories 

 — The Tease on Truth — The Veteran John Corlett 



I SUPPOSE everybody knows " Robin Goodfellow," 

 otherwise Mr Mellish, of the Daily Mail. A more 

 thorough worker does not exist. Of course he has the 

 inestimable advantage of an enormous circulation 

 behind him which must be appealing. I know it 

 always was to me when doing the Express article, 

 we get so closely in touch with a halfpenny public. 

 At one time Mellish would have laughed at the idea of 

 ever making his profession that of writing on racing, 

 but he found his metier and is one of the soundest 

 authorities. Many years ago, when giving an imitation 

 of the various methods of turf correspondents, Mellish 

 was one of the first I singled out and the recognition 

 of who the writer was intended to be in a spoof article 

 was quite easy, owing to two or three Dickens quota- 

 tions being brought into it. Robin Goodfellow is a 

 thorough Dickens student, and perhaps no man has 

 called on his memory more to find apt phrases which 

 shall define a situation. 



I have often envied his capacity for making copious 

 notes of what he hears or is told, these being put down 

 in shorthand may serve more to memorise something 

 he wants to put into his article than for subsequent 

 reference. He has always been a man to weigh up 

 many things he wishes to say before putting them 



256 



