The "King's Head" was an humble place in the old-fashioned style. The
house must have been built two hundred years, and the bar seemed as if it
had been dug out of the house. The floor was some inches lower than the
street, and the ceiling was hardly more than a couple of feet above the
head of a tall man. Nor was it divided by numerous varnished partitions,
according to the latest fashion. There were but three. The private
entrance was in Dean Street, where a few swells came over from the theatre
and called for brandies-and-sodas. There was a little mahogany what-not on
the counter, and Esther served her customers between the little shelves.
The public entrance and the jug and bottle entrance were in a side street.
There was no parlour for special customers at the back, and the public bar
was inconveniently crowded by a dozen people. The "King's Head" was not an
up-to-date public-house. It had, however, one thing in its favour--it was
a free house, and William said they had only to go on supplying good
stuff, and trade would be sure to come back to them. For their former
partner had done them much harm by systematic adulteration, and a little
way down the street a new establishment, with painted tiles and brass
lamps, had been opened, and was attracting all the custom of the
neighbourhood. She was more anxious than William to know what loss the
books showed; she was jealous of the profits of his turf account, and when
he laughed at her she said, "But you're never here in the daytime, you do
not have these empty bars staring you in the face morning and afternoon."
And then she would tell him: a dozen pots of beer about dinner-time, a few
glasses of bitter--there had been a rehearsal over the way--and that was
about all.
The bars were empty, and the public-house dozed through the heavy heat of
a summer afternoon. Esther sat behind the bar sewing, waiting for Jackie
to come home from school. William was away at Newmarket. The clock struck
five and Jackie peeped through the doors, dived under the counter, and ran
into his mother's arms.
"Well, did you get full marks to-day?"
"Yes, mummie, I got full marks."
"That's a good boy--and you want your tea?"
"Yes, mummie; I'm that hungry I could hardly walk home."
"Hardly walk home! What, as bad as that?"
"Yes, mummie. There's a new shop open in Oxford Street. The window is all
full of boats. Do you think that if all the favourites were to be beaten
for a month, father would buy me one?"
"I thought you was so hungry you couldn't walk home, dear?"
"Well, mummie, so I was, but----"
Esther laughed. "Well, come this way and have your tea." She went into the
parlour and rang the bell.
"Mummie, may I have buttered toast?"
"Yes, dear, you may."
"And may I go downstairs and help Jane to make it?"
"Yes, you can do that too; it will save her the trouble of coming up. Let
me take off your coat--give me your hat; now run along, and help Jane to
make the toast."
Esther opened a glass door, curtained with red silk; it led from the bar
to the parlour, a tiny room, hardly larger than the private bar, holding
with difficulty a small round table, three chairs, an arm-chair, a
cupboard. In the morning a dusty window let in a melancholy twilight, but
early in the afternoon it became necessary to light the gas. Esther took a
cloth from the cupboard, and laid the table for Jackie's tea. He came up
the kitchen stairs telling Jane how many marbles he had won, and at that
moment voices were heard in the bar.
It was William, tall and gaunt, buttoned up in a grey frock-coat, a pair
of field glasses slung over his shoulders. He was with his clerk, Ted
Blamy, a feeble, wizen little man, dressed in a shabby tweed suit, covered
with white dust.
"Put that bag down, Teddy, and come and have a drink."
Esther saw at once that things had not gone well with him.
"Have the favourites been winning?"
"Yes, every bloody one. Five first favourites straight off the reel, three
yesterday, and two second favourites the day before. By God, no man can
stand up against it. Come, what'll you have to drink, Teddy?"
"A little whisky, please, guv'nor."
The men had their drink. Then William told Teddy to take his bag upstairs,
and he followed Esther into the parlour. She could see that he had been
losing heavily, but she refrained from asking questions.
"Now, Jackie, you keep your father company; tell him how you got on at
school. I'm going downstairs to look after his dinner."
"Don't you mind about my dinner, Esther, don't you trouble; I was thinking
of dining at a restaurant. I'll be back at nine."
"Then I'll see nothing of you. We've hardly spoken to one another this
week; all the day you're away racing, and in the evening you're talking to
your friends over the bar. We never have a moment alone."
"Yes, Esther, I know; but the truth is, I'm a bit down in the mouth. I've
had a very bad week. The favourites has been winning, and I overlaid my
book against Wheatear; I'd heard that she was as safe as 'ouses. I'll meet
some pals down at the 'Cri'; it will cheer me up."
Seeing how disappointed she was, he hesitated, and asked what there was
for dinner. "A sole and a nice piece of steak; I'm sure you'll like it.
I've a lot to talk to you about. Do stop, Bill, to please me." She was
very winning in her quiet, grave way, so he took her in his arms, kissed
her, and said he would stop, that no one could cook a sole as she could,
that it gave him an appetite to think of it.
"And may I stop with father while you are cooking his dinner?" said
Jackie.
"Yes, you can do that; but you must go to bed when I bring it upstairs. I
want to talk with father then."
Jackie seemed quite satisfied with this arrangement, but when Esther came
upstairs with the sole, and was about to hand him over to Jane, he begged
lustily to be allowed to remain until father had finished his fish. "It
won't matter to you," he said; "you've to go downstairs to fry the steak."
But when she came up with the steak he was unwilling as ever to leave. She
said he must go to bed, and he knew from her tone that argument was
useless. As a last consolation, she promised him that she would come
upstairs and kiss him before he went to sleep.
"You will come, won't you, mummie? I shan't go to sleep till you do."
Esther and William both laughed, and Esther was pleased, for she was still
a little jealous of his love for his father.
"Come along," Jackie cried to Jane, and he ran upstairs, chattering to her
about the toys he had seen in Oxford Street. Charles was lighting the gas,
and Esther had to go into the bar to serve some customers. When she
returned, William was smoking his pipe. Her dinner had had its effect, he
had forgotten his losses, and was willing to tell her the news. He had a
bit of news for her. He had seen Ginger; Ginger had come up as cordial as
you like, and had asked him what price he was laying.
"Did he bet with you?"
"Yes, I laid him ten pounds to five."
Once more William began to lament his luck. "You'll have better luck
to-morrow," she said. "The favourites can't go on winning. Tell me about
Ginger."
"There isn't much to tell. We'd a little chat. He knew all about the
little arrangement, the five hundred, you know, and laughed heartily.
Peggy's married. I've forgotten the chap's name."
"The one that you kicked downstairs?"
"No, not him; I can't think of it. No matter, Ginger remembered you; he
wished us luck, took the address, and said he'd come in to-night to see
you if he possibly could. I don't think he's been doing too well lately,
if he had he'd been more stand-offish. I saw Jimmy White--you remember
Jim, the little fellow we used to call the Demon, 'e that won the
Stewards' Cup on Silver Braid?... Didn't you and 'e 'ave a tussle together
at the end of dinner--the first day you come down from town?"
"The second day it was."
"You're right, it was the second day. The first day I met you in the
avenue I was leaning over the railings having a smoke, and you come along
with a heavy bundle and asked me the way. I wasn't in service at that
time. Good Lord, how time does slip by! It seems like yesterday.... And
after all those years to meet you as you was going to the public for a jug
of beer, and 'ere we are man and wife sitting side by side in our own
'ouse."
Esther had been in the "King's Head" now nearly a year. The first Mrs.
Latch had got her divorce without much difficulty; and Esther had begun to
realise that she had got a good husband long before they slipped round to
the nearest registry office and came back man and wife.
Charles opened the door. "Mr. Randal is in the bar, sir, and would like to
have a word with you."
"All right," said William. "Tell him I'm coming into the bar presently."
Charles withdrew. "I'm afraid," said William, lowering his voice, "that
the old chap is in a bad way. He's been out of a place a long while, and
will find it 'ard to get back again. Once yer begin to age a bit, they
won't look at you. We're both well out of business."
Mr. Randal sat in his favourite corner by the wall, smoking his clay. He
wore a large frock-coat, vague in shape, pathetically respectable. The
round hat was greasy round the edges, brown and dusty on top. The shirt
was clean but unstarched, and the thin throat was tied with an old black
silk cravat. He looked himself, the old servant out of situation--the old
servant who would never be in situation again.
"Been 'aving an 'ell of a time at Newmarket," said William; "favourites
romping in one after the other."
"I saw that the favourites had been winning. But I know of something, a
rank outsider, for the Leger. I got the letter this morning. I thought I'd
come round and tell yer."
"Much obliged, old mate, but it don't do for me to listen to such tales;
we bookmakers must pay no attention to information, no matter how correct
it may be.... Much obliged all the same. What are you drinking?"
"I've not finished my glass yet." He tossed off the last mouthful.
"The same?" said William.
"Yes, thank you."
William drew two glasses of porter. "Here's luck." The men nodded, drank,
and then William turned to speak to a group at the other end of the bar.
"One moment," John said, touching William on the shoulder. "It is the best
tip I ever had in my life. I 'aven't forgotten what I owe you, and if this
comes off I'll be able to pay you all back. Lay the odds, twenty
sovereigns to one against--" Old John looked round to see that no one was
within ear-shot, then he leant forward and whispered the horse's name in
William's ear. William laughed. "If you're so sure about it as all that,"
he said, "I'd sooner lend you the quid to back the horse elsewhere."
"Will you lend me a quid?"
"Lend you a quid and five first favourites romping in one after
another!--you must take me for Baron Rothschild. You think because I've a
public-house I'm coining money; well, I ain't. It's cruel the business we
do here. You wouldn't believe it, and you know that better liquor can't be
got in the neighbourhood." Old John listened with the indifference of a
man whose life is absorbed in one passion and who can interest himself
with nothing else. Esther asked him after Mrs. Randal and his children,
but conversation on the subject was always disagreeable to him, and he
passed it over with few words. As soon as Esther moved away he leant
forward and whispered, "Lay me twelve pounds to ten shillings. I'll be
sure to pay you; there's a new restaurant going to open in Oxford Street
and I'm going to apply for the place of headwaiter."
"Yes, but will you get it?" William answered brutally. He did not mean to
be unkind, but his nature was as hard and as plain as a kitchen-table. The
chin dropped into the unstarched collar and the old-fashioned necktie, and
old John continued smoking unnoticed by any one. Esther looked at him. She
saw he was down on his luck, and she remembered the tall, melancholy,
pale-faced woman whom she had met weeping by the sea-shore the day that
Silver Braid had won the cup. She wondered what had happened to her, in
what corner did she live, and where was the son that John Randal had not
allowed to enter the Barfield establishment as page-boy, thinking he would
be able to make something better of him than a servant.
The regular customers had begun to come in. Esther greeted them with nods
and smiles of recognition. She drew the beer two glasses at once in her
hand, and picked up little zinc measures, two and four of whisky, and
filled them from a small tap. She usually knew the taste of her customers.
When she made a mistake she muttered "stupid," and Mr. Ketley was much
amused at her forgetting that he always drank out of the bottle; he was
one of the few who came to the "King's Head" who could afford sixpenny
whisky. "I ought to have known by this time," she said. "Well, mistakes
will occur in the best regulated families," the little butterman replied.
He was meagre and meek, with a sallow complexion and blond beard. His pale
eyes were anxious, and his thin, bony hands restless. His general manner
was oppressed, and he frequently raised his hat to wipe his forehead,
which was high and bald. At his elbow stood Journeyman, Ketley's very
opposite. A tall, harsh, angular man, long features, a dingy complexion,
and the air of a dismissed soldier. He held a glass of whisky-and-water in
a hairy hand, and bit at the corner of a brown moustache. He wore a
threadbare black frock-coat, and carried a newspaper under his arm. Ketley
and Journeyman held widely different views regarding the best means of
backing horses. Ketley was preoccupied with dreams and omens; Journeyman,
a clerk in the parish registry office, studied public form; he was guided
by it in all his speculations, and paid little heed to the various rumours
always afloat regarding private trials. Public form he admitted did not
always come out right, but if a man had a headpiece and could remember all
the running, public form was good enough to follow. Racing with Journeyman
was a question of calculation, and great therefore was his contempt for
the weak and smiling Ketley, whom he went for on all occasions. But Ketley
was pluckier than his appearance indicated, and the duels between the two
were a constant source of amusement in the bar of the "King's Head."
"Well, Herbert, the omen wasn't altogether up to the mark this time," said
Journeyman, with a malicious twinkle in his small brown eyes.
"No, it was one of them unfortunate accidents."
"One of them unfortunate accidents," repeated Journeyman, derisively;
"what's accidents to do with them that 'as to do with the reading of
omens? I thought they rose above such trifles as weights, distances, bad
riding.... A stone or two should make no difference if the omen is right."
Ketley was no way put out by the slight titter that Journeyman's retort
had produced in the group about the bar. He drank his whisky-and-water
deliberately, like one, to use a racing expression, who had been over the
course before.
"I've 'eard that argument. I know all about it, but it don't alter me. Too
many strange things occur for me to think that everything can be
calculated with a bit of lead-pencil in a greasy pocket-book."
"What has the grease of my pocket-book to do with it?" replied Journeyman,
looking round. The company smiled and nodded. "You says that signs and
omens is above any calculation of weights. Never mind the pocket-book,
greasy or not greasy; you says that these omens is more to be depended on
than the best stable information."
"I thought that you placed no reliance on stable information, and that you
was guided by the weights that you calculated in that 'ere pocket-book."
"What's my pocket-book to do with it? You want to see my pocket-book;
well, here it is, and I'll bet two glasses of beer that it ain't greasier
than any other pocket-book in this bar."
"I don't see meself what pocket-books, greasy or not greasy, has to do
with it," said William. "Walter put a fair question to Herbert. The omen
didn't come out right, and Walter wanted to know why it didn't come out
right."
"That was it," said Journeyman.
All eyes were now fixed on Ketley. "You want to know why the omen wasn't
right? I'll tell you--because it was no omen at all, that's why. The omens
always comes right; it is we who aren't always in the particular state of
mind that allows us to read the omens right." Journeyman shrugged his
shoulders contemptuously. Ketley looked at him with the same expression of
placid amusement. "You'd like me to explain; well, I will. The omen is
always right, but we aren't always in the state of mind for the reading of
the omen. You think that ridiculous, Walter; but why should omens differ
from other things? Some days we can get through our accounts in 'alf the
time we can at other times, the mind being clearer. I asks all present if
that is not so."
Ketley had got hold of his audience, and Journeyman's remark about closing
time only provoked a momentary titter. Ketley looked long and steadily at
Journeyman and then said, "Perhaps closing time won't do no more for your
calculation of weights than for my omens.... I know them jokes, we've
'eard them afore; but I'm not making jokes; I'm talking serious." The
company nodded approval. "I was saying there was times when the mind is
fresh like the morning. That's the time for them what 'as got the gift of
reading the omens. It is a sudden light that comes into the mind, and it
points straight like a ray of sunlight, if there be nothing to stop it....
Now do you understand?" No one had understood, but all felt that they were
on the point of understanding. "The whole thing is in there being nothing
to interrupt the light."
"But you says yourself that yer can't always read them," said Journeyman;
"an accident will send you off on the wrong tack, so it all comes to the
same thing, omens or no omens."
"A man will trip over a piece of wire laid across the street, but that
don't prove he can't walk, do it, Walter?"
Walter was unable to say that it did not, and so Ketley scored another
point over his opponent. "I made a mistake, I know I did, and if it will
help you to understand I'll tell you how it was made. Three weeks ago I
was in this 'ere bar 'aving what I usually takes. It was a bit early; none
of you fellows had come in. I don't think it was much after eight. The
governor was away in the north racin'--hadn't been 'ome for three or four
days; the missus was beginning to look a bit lonely." Ketley smiled and
glanced at Esther, who had told Charles to serve some customers, and was
listening as intently as the rest. "I'd 'ad a nice bit of supper, and was
just feeling that fresh and clear 'eaded as I was explaining to you just
now is required for the reading, thinking of nothing in perticler, when
suddenly the light came. I remembered a conversation I 'ad with a chap
about American corn. He wouldn't 'ear of the Government taxing corn to
'elp the British farmer. Well, that conversation came back to me as clear
as if the dawn had begun to break. I could positively see the bloody corn;
I could pretty well 'ave counted it. I felt there was an omen about
somewhere, and all of a tremble I took up the paper; it was lying on the
bar just where your hand is, Walter. But at that moment, just as I was
about to cast my eye down the list of 'orses, a cab comes down the street
as 'ard as it could tear. There was but two or three of us in the bar, and
we rushed out--the shafts was broke, 'orse galloping and kicking, and the
cabby 'olding on as 'ard as he could. But it was no good, it was bound to
go, and over it went against the kerb. The cabby, poor chap, was pretty
well shook to pieces; his leg was broke, and we'd to 'elp to take him to
the hosspital. Now I asks if it was no more than might be expected that I
should have gone wrong about the omen. Next day, as luck would have it, I
rolled up 'alf a pound of butter in a piece of paper on which 'Cross
Roads' was written."
"But if there had been no accident and you 'ad looked down the list of
'orses, 'ow do yer know that yer would 'ave spotted the winner?"
"What, not Wheatear, and with all that American corn in my 'ead? Is it
likely I'd've missed it?"
No one answered, and Ketley drank his whisky in the midst of a most
thoughtful silence. At last one of the group said, and he seemed to
express the general mind of the company--
"I don't know if omens be worth a-following of, but I'm blowed if 'orses
be worth backing if the omens is again them."
His neighbour answered, "And they do come wonderful true occasional. They
'as 'appened to me, and I daresay to all 'ere present." The company
nodded. "You've noticed how them that knows nothing at all about
'orses--the less they knows the better their luck--will look down the lot
and spot the winner from pure fancy--the name that catches their eyes as
likely."
"There's something in it," said a corpulent butcher with huge, pursy,
prominent eyes and a portentous stomach. "I always held with going to
church, and I hold still more with going to church since I backed Vanity
for the Chester Cup. I was a-falling asleep over the sermon, when suddenly
I wakes up hearing, 'Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity.'"
Several similar stories were told, and then various systems for backing
horses were discussed. "You don't believe that no 'orses is pulled?" said
Mr. Stack, the porter at Sutherland Mansions, Oxford Street, a large,
bluff man, wearing a dark blue square-cut frock coat with brass buttons. A
curious-looking man, with red-stained skin, dark beady eyes, a scanty
growth of beard, and a loud, assuming voice. "You don't believe that no
'orses is pulled?" he reiterated.
"I didn't say that no 'orse was never pulled," said Journeyman. He stood
with his back leaning against the partition, his long legs stretched out.
"If one was really in the know, then I don't say nothing about it; but who
of us is ever really in the know?"
"I'm not so sure about that," said Mr. Stack. "There's a young man in my
mansions that 'as a servant; this servant's cousin, a girl in the country,
keeps company with one of the lads in the White House stable. If that
ain't good enough, I don't know what is; good enough for my half-crown and
another pint of beer too, Mrs. Latch, as you'll be that kind."
Esther drew the beer, and Old John, who had said nothing till now,
suddenly joined in the conversation. He too had heard of something; he
didn't know if it was the same as Stack had heard of; he didn't expect it
was. It couldn't very well be, 'cause no one knew of this particular
horse, not a soul!--not 'alf-a-dozen people in the world. No, he would
tell no one until his money and the stable money was all right. And he
didn't care for no half-crowns or dollars this time, if he couldn't get a
sovereign or two on the horse he'd let it alone. This time he'd be a man
or a mouse. Every one was listening intently, but old John suddenly
assumed an air of mystery and refused to say another word. The
conversation worked back whither it had started, and again the best method
of backing horses was passionately discussed. Interrupting someone whose
theories seemed intolerably ludicrous, Journeyman said--
"Let's 'ear what's the governor's opinion; he ought to know what kind of
backer gets the most out of him."
Journeyman's proposal to submit the question to the governor met with very
general approval. Even the vagrant who had taken his tankard of porter to
the bench where he could drink and eat what fragments of food he had
collected, came forward, interested to know what kind of backer got most
out of the bookmaker.
"Well," said William, "I haven't been making a book as long as some of
them, but since you ask me what I think I tell you straight. I don't care
a damn whether they backs according to their judgment, or their dreams, or
their fancy. The cove that follows favourites, or the cove that backs a
jockey's mount, the cove that makes an occasional bet when he hears of a
good thing, the cove that bets regular, 'cording to a system--the cove,
yer know, what doubles every time--or the cove that bets as the mood takes
him--them and all the other coves, too numerous to be mentioned, I'm glad
to do business with. I cries out to one as 'eartily as to another: 'The
old firm, the old firm, don't forget the old firm.... What can I do for
you to-day, sir?' There's but one sort of cove I can't abide."
"And he is--" said Journeyman.
"He is Mr. George Buff."
"Who's he? who's he?" asked several; and the vagrant caused some amusement
by the question, "Do 'e bet on the course?"
"Yes, he do," said William, "an' nowhere else. He's at every meeting as
reg'lar as if he was a bookie himself. I 'ates to see his face.... I'd be
a rich man if I'd all the money that man 'as 'ad out of me in the last
three years."
"What should you say was his system?" asked Mr. Stack.
"I don't know no more than yerselves."
This admission seemed a little chilling; for everyone had thought himself
many steps nearer El Dorado.
"But did you ever notice," said Mr. Ketley, "that there was certain days
on which he bet?"
"No, I never noticed that."
"Are they outsiders that he backs?" asked Stack.
"No, only favourites. But what I can't make out is that there are times
when he won't touch them; and when he don't, nine times out of ten they're
beaten."
"Are the 'orses he backs what you'd call well in?" said Journeyman.
"Not always."
"Then it must be on information from the stable authorities?" said Stack.
"I dun know," said William; "have it that way if you like, but I'm glad
there ain't many about like him. I wish he'd take his custom elsewhere. He
gives me the solid hump, he do."
"What sort of man should you say he was? 'as he been a servant, should you
say?" asked old John.
"I can't tell you what he is. Always new suit of clothes and a hie-glass.
Whenever I see that 'ere hie-glass and that brown beard my heart goes down
in my boots. When he don't bet he takes no notice, walks past with a vague
look on his face, as if he didn't see the people, and he don't care that
for the 'orses. Knowing he don't mean no business, I cries to him, 'The
best price, Mr. Buff; two to one on the field, ten to one bar two or
three.' He just catches his hie-glass tighter in eye and looks at me,
smiles, shakes his head, and goes on. He is a warm 'un; he is just about
as 'ot as they make 'em."
"What I can't make out," said Journeyman, "is why he bets on the course.
You say he don't know nothing about horses. Why don't he remain at 'ome
and save the exes?"
"I've thought of all that," said William, "and can't make no more out of
it than you can yerselves. All we know is that, divided up between five or
six of us, Buff costs not far short of six 'undred a year."
At that moment a small blond man came into the bar. Esther knew him at
once. It was Ginger. He had hardly changed at all--a little sallower, a
little dryer, a trifle less like a gentleman.
"Won't you step round, sir, to the private bar?" said William. "You'll be
more comfortable."
"Hardly worth while. I was at the theatre, and I thought I'd come in and
have a look round.... I see that you haven't forgotten the old horses," he
said, catching sight of the prints of Silver Braid and Summer's Dean which
William had hung on the wall. "That was a great day, wasn't it? Fifty to
one chance, started at thirty; and you remember the Gaffer tried him to
win with twenty pound more than he had to carry.... Hullo, John! very glad
to see you again; growing strong and well, I hope?"
The old servant looked so shabby that Esther was not surprised that Ginger
did not shake hands with him. She wondered if he would remember her, and
as the thought passed through her mind he extended his hand across the
bar.
"I 'ope I may have the honour of drinking a glass of wine with you, sir,"
said William. Ginger raised no objection, and William told Esther to go
down-stairs and fetch up a bottle of champagne.
Ketley, Journeyman, Stack, and the others listened eagerly. To meet the
celebrated gentleman-rider was a great event in their lives. But the
conversation was confined to the Barfield horses; it was carried on by the
merest allusion, and Journeyman wearied of it. He said he must be getting
home; the others nodded, finished their glasses, and bade William
good-night as they left. A couple of flower-girls with loose hair, shawls,
and trays of flowers, suggestive of streetfaring, came in and ordered four
ale. They spoke to the vagrant, who collected his match-boxes in
preparation for a last search for charity. William cut the wires of the
champagne, and at that moment Charles, who had gone through with the
ladder to turn out the street lamp, returned with a light overcoat on his
arm which he said a cove outside wanted to sell him for two-and-six.
"Do you know him?" said William.
"Yes, I knowed him. I had to put him out the other night--Bill Evans, the
cove that wears the blue Melton."
The swing doors were opened, and a man between thirty and forty came in.
He was about the medium height; a dark olive skin, black curly hair,
picturesque and disreputable, like a bird of prey in his blue Melton
jacket and billycock hat.
"You'd better 'ave the coat," he said; "you won't better it;" and coming
into the bar he planked down a penny as if it were a sovereign. "Glass of
porter; nice warm weather, good for the 'arvest. Just come up from the
country--a bit dusty, ain't I?"
"Ain't you the chap," said William, "what laid Mr. Ketley six 'alf-crowns
to one against Cross Roads?"