AN OFF CHANCE. 201 



cisively. ''We shall beat her, I've no doubt. 

 She's here, and looking very well, too. She'll 

 win a little race before long, next week, per- 

 haps ; but she's got 12 lb. too much this journey. 

 With 10 st. she might have a look in." 



" There's the fly, I think," Atherton said, 

 looking out of the other window. " There'll be 

 a crowd to-day, too. See the carriages going." 



The band was plajdng outside, but its 

 audience was chiefly made up of nursemaids 

 and children, with a few ladies and elderly 

 gentlemen in bath chairs. Every one seemed 

 to be going to the races. Vehicles of all sorts, 

 from the well-appointed drag, with its even 

 team, to the ramshackle fly drawn by a broken- 

 kneed creature on four shapeless legs, were all 

 travelling in one direction, hampers, with the 

 name of the local purveyor of good things 

 painted in black letters on their sides, being 

 frequent items of the load. Not the worse- 

 horsed of the private phaetons and dog-carts 

 belonged to the bookmaking fraternity, but the 

 get-up of their grooms usually proclaimed their 

 masters' status. Nearly every occupant of every 

 carriage was provided with a card, a little book, 

 and two or three papers, and they referred from 

 card to book and book to paper, and compared 

 notes with each other in a way which unniis- 



