ii6 



A Short Head 



glance at the numbers ! He was in a hurry, it is true, 

 but this would not have taken a moment. He knew full 

 well how fatally deceptive the view from the stand is, how 

 often the best judges watching from there are mistaken 

 about what has won at the five-furlong winning-post. 



Fool that he had been 



Why had he not just called at his club and looked at the 

 tape ? It is so easy to be wise, to know what one ought 

 to have done, after the event ! But what was his position ? 

 His own miserable fiction stood against him, the second 

 letter he had written about the price, telling Weymouth 

 that he had won him 3,750/. This unnecessary cir- 

 cumstantial lie had cost him the difference between 



