FOURTH PERIOD: VICTORIA 229 



they issue from their clubs by jaunty but seedy 

 ' Montague Tiggs/ who have evidently ' seen 

 better days,' and who back their appeals by a 

 laughing but bitter remark that they ' belonged 

 to the clubs only the other day ' themselves, were 

 required to prove it) might be inferred from the 

 fact that some of the more successful, rather than 

 the more respectable, ' layers of odds,' popularly 

 known as ' bookies ' (though there is no reason 

 why a ' backer ' should not be, as, indeed, he 

 frequently is, a maker of a ' book '), have been 

 agitating for protection from themselves — that is 

 to say, from the less successful, and therefore 

 more disreputable, of their fraternity — and have 

 expressed a desire to be reo^istered, or licensed, or 

 certificated, or distinguished and discriminated by 

 some easily recognisable sign or badge. As if, 

 like Dogberry, one should desire to be written 

 down an ass (though that would apply to the 

 * backer ' only or chiefly), or to bear * the mark 

 of the beast ' as plain as a pikestaff. 



For it cannot be too often pointed out or too 

 persistently urged that to speak of the dealings of 

 'the betting ring' as legitimate 'business' is a 



