38 Phyllis and Ophell4 



truth what she purported to be, the veritable Opheha ! 

 Could that possibly be it ? What else could it be ? And 

 yet he had most certainly changed the cards, as he had 

 told Dossie he would do, and he was positive, moreover, 

 that the mare he intended to give to Osborne's servant 

 had been given to him. 



The stupefaction with which Dossie received the news 

 of how the two good things — the four good things, 

 for there were two horses to back and two to lay against 

 — had been upset, and the rage of Thomas, when it was 

 found that his neat trick had been ruined, are not easily 

 to be described ; nor would a detailed description of the 

 scene which took place when Sharpe made his next 

 appearance at Common Farm be edifying. 



By degrees the facts came out. Thomas, on arriving 

 at the station on the real Ophelia, had, while putting the 

 mares into the box, removed the label from her head- 

 stall and substituted that which Dossie had fastened on to 

 Phyllis. It was his scheme, and he supposed that the 

 working of it had been left in his hands. Sharpe, on 

 the other hand, had told Dossie to ' leave it to him,' and 

 had undertaken to ' see that it was all right.' Having 

 no idea that Thomas had changed the labels already, 

 he had simply changed them back again, as before 

 described. Osborne, therefore, had the mare he had 

 bought, and the real Ophelia had been sent to France. 



* Well ! ' Osborne said, in the smoking-room of his 

 club one night some months afterwards, when Dossie 

 and Sharpe had bungled over a swindle and had been 

 warned off, ' I'm sorry about it. I suppose Dossie must 

 be a scamp — Sharpe I know nothing of — but on the 

 principle of speaking of a man as you find him, I 



