196 Too Clever 



was so far from really ready that he was in no way sur- 

 prised to hear 100 to 7 offered, and when the horses set off 

 on their journey to the start the powerlessness of Anvil's 

 boy to do anything with that wrong- and strong-headed 

 animal was abundantly apparent. Once more he looked 

 for the blue and white diamonds which Brown Shoes 

 carried, or for the yellow and black hoops which were 

 borne by The Caliph, who was entered in Weekes's name 

 and ran in his colours, though it was understood that 

 Dane owned a share of him ; but the pair and their trainer 

 were invisible, nor had he seen Dane — whom, however, 

 he did not particularly want to see — for having a very 

 heavy stake depending on the race, Dane preferred to sit 

 in his fly in solitude till he knew the best or the w^orst. 



It does not take long to send a Cesarewitch field on 

 its way, and very soon after the white flag, held conspicu- 

 ously on the top of the Ditch, had been raised, it fell, 

 its fall being of course acknowledged by the familiar cry, 

 'They're off!' 



Moss's nerves were under pretty good control, but he 

 felt his heart bumping furiously as he kept his glasses fixed 

 on the spot where the field would reappear when they had 

 sped past the gap, looking there like horses in a scene at a 

 theatre. Dane, too, waited and watched with eager 

 anxiety, striving to make out colours in the distant line 

 of horses as they turned the corner of the Ditch and 

 came into the straight. Something in red seemed to be 

 in front, wide on the left, and the still uncertain specta- 

 tors assumed, correctly as it happened, that this was 

 Anvil, at whom, indeed, the boy had never been able to 

 get a pull till they had gone a good mile and a half, when 

 the brute, having done pulling, had done going. On they 

 came, a white jacket was now well in front, and — 



