SOME LATTER-DAY PENCILLERS 27 



had hedged his money, and backed Cotherstone, the 

 winner. 



Harry Hill was a close confederate of both John Gully 

 and Padwick, and the clique worked many a notable coup 

 together. He would lay, while Gully would back, and so 

 they played beautifully into each other's hands. It was 

 out of the " dead uns " — the chief source of profit to the 

 operator in the days before the telegraph — that the book- 

 maker got most of his money. 



His heaviest loss was on West Australian. He and a 

 clique had squared Frank Butler to lose the Leger on the 

 famous horse ; but the plot was discovered, and Colonel 

 Anson and Mr. Bowes summoned Frank to their presence 

 the night before the race, and told him what would happen 

 if he did not win. 



He was wise enough to take the hint, and he gave the 

 tip to the conspirators. Hill hedged all he could, but that 

 was very little, and he dropped some ;^20,ooo. In his 

 later days he gambled on the Stock Exchange ; but the 

 bulls and bears gored and hugged the astute bookmaker 

 out of ;^40,ooo in one year. 



Though Hill managed to accumulate a colossal fortune, 

 he never aped the swell. He never desired to be a country 

 gentleman like Gully ; a town magnifico, like Padwick or 

 Swindell; who, however, were money-lenders first and 

 bookmakers afterwards. He was rather of the Jem Bland 

 order, especially in his love for low company. No amount 

 of money or intercourse with good class men could wean 

 him from the tastes of his early days — the inn-yard and 

 the tap-room — and he was never so much at home as when, 

 attired in his invariable suit of ill-fitting, rusty black, which 

 looked as if it had been made for his grandfather, he 

 presided at a table surrounded by ostlers, jockeys, and the 

 nondescripts of the Turf, from which he himself had sprung. 

 Here he was king. Everybody roared at his queer stories, 

 which were quite unfit for ears other than those of the men 

 who surrounded him ; and the louder they roared the more 

 drinks he stood. Most of his evenings, especially after he 

 had retired from bookmaking, were spent at the Coach 

 and Horses in Dover Street, Piccadilly. 



