THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 203 



up to Goodall, whom he chanced to espy on the course ; 

 " for God's sake, where is Dauntley ? " 



" What do you want with him in such a hurry ? " asked 

 Goodall. 



" To hedge our money before the ring breaks up," was 

 the reply ; " I have reason to believe we are all done aboiit 

 Rouge, who has not a chance to win, and the other filly 

 has." 



The upshot, however, was this : Lord Dauntley could 

 not be found ; neither our hero nor Goodall had any 

 credit in the ring, which, in an hour from that time, was 

 broken up ; and to the post went the fillies. The race 

 was one of the quickest ever seen over that course. 

 Euphrosyne answering every stroke of the whip and every 

 dig of the spur struggling, in short, to the very last 

 stride was only beaten by a head, whereas the favourite 

 was at the extremity of the tail, or, as his owner said 

 of Eclipse's competitors, " noichere." And the summing 

 up of the case was this : Mr. Trueman won 300 by 

 backing Rouge to lose, the money being laid out for him 

 by a friend ; and if Ephrosyne had won the race, he 

 would have pocketed 3000 on the event in fact, to 

 use his own words, let drop when very drunk, he should 

 from that hour have been a gentleman. But it now matters 

 little : Mr. Trueman went to his account without having 

 been created a gentleman, by breaking his neck down 

 stairs, when in a state of beastly intoxication ; and our 

 hero purchased a lesson at no very great cost. 



Now, independently of the lose of the stakes, and the 

 honour of being a winner of the Oaks an honour which, 

 nevertheless, must in this case have lain dormant for 

 a time there was one very provoking circumstance to 

 Frank Raby, in this foul transaction. He could have 

 sold Rouge for 1000 guineas, on the strength of her 

 place in the betting, whereas she was now worth little more 

 than as many half-crowns in fact, she was soon after- 

 wards sold at about that figure. Euphrosyne, however, 

 was valuable, and might have been sold for a very 

 considerable sum. To get rid of the thing altogether,, 

 however, and to prevent the necessity of his applying to a 

 friend to enable him to pay the bets Lord Dauntley had 

 made for him at Tattersall's, and to discharge Mr. True- 

 man's bill, he accepted an offer made to him, through 

 Trueman, of 800 guineas for her, which, with no great 



