DBIVE A NAIL WHERE IT WILL GO. 53 



and that we were sent into a beautiful world to enjoy it. 

 Racino' he said, was not in itself a sin, nor A¥as a bet, if the 

 person who made it could afford to lose the sum he staked. 

 It was against the abuses, such as cheating, lying,, and swind- 

 ling which had grown up round a fine sport, that he declaimed. 

 Was not e\'ery sport liable to the same unfortunate sur- 

 roundings — cricket, football, tennis, or golf? Let all those, 

 then, who were engaged in the business of racing, carry out 

 their duties in a straightforward and honest manner. Let 

 them strive manfully to purify the sport, which in the town 

 of Market Blyton was an important industry, and let there 

 be no blot on the transactions of any in their little colony. 

 Mr. Talbot established an institute for the stable boys 

 belon^ino^ to the traininof stables in the neighbourhood, started 

 evening classes, got up concerts and entertainments in the 

 winter and cricket matches in the summer, and by his manly 

 example did no little good in Market Blyton. But in the 

 Gospel according to Jabez all this was hopelessly and shock- 

 ingly wrong. 



In due time William Morgan left the village school 

 for the Grammar school, and after he left the latter came the 

 important question of his future career. Jabez settled the 

 matter by securing him a situation in a solicitor's office in 

 the neighbouring town of Long Buckley, and thither he was 

 sent. William had held out strongly in favour of being 

 allowed to enter a racing stable as apprentice, but this 

 his father emphatically declined to permit. Still the boy 

 was bent on it, and after a few months had elapsed he wrote 

 his father to the efiect that he could not and would not 

 continue to drag out a miserable existence in a lawyer's 

 office, and that by the time he received that letter he should 

 have left Long Buckley in search of work more congenial to 

 him. To Mr Talbot, who had urged him to abide by his 

 father's wishes, he also wrote telling him that he had done 



