Too Clever 183 



seemed boundless wealth. He had become an enthusiast 

 about racing, and after all, if a man gives close on six thou- 

 sand guineas for a couple of yearlings to add to his string, 

 what appreciable effect has that upon 100,000/. ? Then 

 his trainer had advised him to buy a plater — not a com- 

 mon beast, but one for which the owner bid up to 1,250 

 guineas. Surely it was good business to go fifty more, and 

 have a real plunge. A plunge, indeed, was the only way 

 of getting home, and it was certainly arranged with kill, 

 a starting-price job that would have half closed a dozen 

 prosperous establishments, and severely shaken many 

 others. Perhaps there never was a commission more 

 cleverly plpamed, and if all had gone well, the result 

 would have been a little fortune ; but — fatal but ! — a brute 

 trained by Mr. Arthur Yates, that started without a price, 

 and w^as ridden by a jockey no one had ever heard of, 

 just got up in the last stride, and won by a head ; the more 

 irritating because the measure of everything else in the 

 race had been so accurately taken — and all came out 

 right to an ounce — only no one had bothered about the 

 unknown creature from Bishop's Sutton. The yearlings 

 turned out still worse than the plater, for the one never 

 ran, and the other, having become a bad roarer after an 

 attack of cold, could never get even second in a selling 

 plate. Dane betted, as a rule, on every race ; he had a 

 temporary fancy for yachting, and hired a boat ; he was 

 fond of shooting, and went in for the sport in a manner 

 which made his father's old keeper stand aghast. Dane, 

 in fact, played the game all round, and was invariably 

 astonished whenever he looked at his bank-book to dis- 

 cover that he had so many hundreds or thousands less 

 than he had confidently expected to find. One cannot 

 eat one's cake and have it, as we all know ; but Dane 



