266 THE RACING WORLD 



one good turn, but I do not care to ask him 

 questions ; if his horse is being backed I shall 

 certainly follow suit, but I will not make direct 

 inquiries, partly for the reason that I know his 

 cryptic style of answering them, apparently out- 

 spoken and straightforward, but therefore all the 

 more misleading. You know him ? Ask him by 

 all means if you choose. 



" Fancy mine ? " says the Captain in reply. 

 " How can I, my dear fellow ? You saw it run 

 last week. Cake Walk beat it half a dozen lengths, 

 and my horse is allowed 31b. for the beating. 

 Backing it, are they ? Well, I hope they'll win 

 their money. The handicap's absurd, but they 

 always rush anything of ours to a false price." 



The Captain's horse wins easily enough, and 

 with a shrug of the shoulders he says he does not 

 understand what Cake Walk can have been doing. 

 A friend of the Captain's — who had put a couple 

 of hundred pounds on for him, one of several 

 similar little commissions executed for the stable — 

 listens gravely whilst some innocent on-looker 

 remarks that the race must have been rather a 

 surprise, and it is a pity that they did not back 

 it as it won so easily. 



The horse is a noble animal, as writers on 

 natural history agree, but he is the unfortunate 



