Lacking a parlour on the ground floor for the use of special customers,
William had arranged a room upstairs where they could smoke and drink.
There were tables in front of the windows and chairs against the walls,
and in the middle of the room a bagatelle board.
When William left off going to race-courses he had intended to refrain
from taking money across the bar and to do all his betting business in
this room.
He thought that it would be safer. But as his customers multiplied he
found that he could not ask them all upstairs; it attracted more attention
than to take the money quietly across the bar. Nevertheless the room
upstairs had proved a success. A man spent more money if he had a room
where he could sit quietly among his friends than he would seated on a
high stool in a public bar, jostled and pushed about; so it had come to be
considered a sort of club room; and a large part of the neighbourhood came
there to read the papers, to hear and discuss the news. And specially
useful it had proved to Journeyman and Stack. Neither was now in
employment; they were now professional backers; and from daylight to dark
they wandered from public-house to public-house, from tobacconist to
barber's shop, in the search of tips, on the quest of stable information
regarding the health of the horses and their trials. But the room upstairs
at the "King's Head" was the centre of their operations. Stack was the
indefatigable tipster, Journeyman was the scientific student of public
form. His memory was prodigious, and it enabled him to note an advantage
in the weights which would escape an ordinary observer. He often picked
out horses which, if they did not actually win, nearly always stood at a
short price in the betting before the race.
The "King's Head" was crowded during the dinner-hour. Barbers and their
assistants, cabmen, scene-shifters, if there was an afternoon performance
at the theatre, servants out of situation and servants escaped from their
service for an hour, petty shopkeepers, the many who grow weary of the
scant livelihood that work brings them, came there. Eleven o'clock! In
another hour the bar and the room upstairs would be crowded. At present
the room was empty, and Journeyman had taken advantage of the quiet time
to do a bit of work at his handicap. All the racing of the last three
years lay within his mind's range; he recalled at will every trifling
selling race; hardly ever was he obliged to refer to the Racing Calendar.
Wanderer had beaten Brick at ten pounds. Snow Queen had beaten Shoemaker
at four pounds, and Shoemaker had beaten Wanderer at seven pounds. The
problem was further complicated by the suspicion that Brick could get a
distance of ground better than Snow Queen. Journeyman was undecided. He
stroked his short brown moustache with his thin, hairy hand, and gnawed
the end of his pen. In this moment of barren reflection Stack came into
the room.
"Still at yer 'andicap, I see," said Stack. "How does it work out?"
"Pretty well," said Journeyman. "But I don't think it will be one of my
best; there is some pretty hard nuts to crack."
"Which are they?" said Stack. Journeyman brightened up, and he proceeded
to lay before Stack's intelligence what he termed a "knotty point in
collateral running."
Stack listened with attention, and thus encouraged, Journeyman proceeded
to point out certain distributions of weight which he said seemed to him
difficult to beat.
"Anyone what knows the running would say there wasn't a pin to choose
between them at the weights. If this was the real 'andicap, I'd bet drinks
all around that fifteen of these twenty would accept. And that's more than
anyone will be able to say for Courtney's 'andicap. The weights will be
out to-morrow; we shall see."
"What do you say to 'alf a pint," said Stack, "and we'll go steadily
through your 'andicap? You've nothing to do for the next 'alf-hour."
Journeyman's dingy face lit up. When the potboy appeared in answer to the
bell he was told to bring up two half-pints, and Journeyman read out the
weights. Every now and then he stopped to explain his reasons for what
might seem to be superficial, an unmerited severity, or an undue leniency.
It was not usual for Journeyman to meet with so sympathetic a listener; he
had often been made to feel that his handicapping was unnecessary, and he
now noticed, and with much pleasure, that Stack's attention seemed to
increase rather than to diminish as he approached the end. When he had
finished Stack said, "I see you've given six-seven to Ben Jonson. Tell me
why you did that?"
"He was a good 'orse once; he's broken down and aged; he can't be trained,
so six-seven seems just the kind of weight to throw him in at. You
couldn't give him less, however old and broken down he may be. He was a
good horse when he won the Great Ebor Grand Cup."
"Do you think if they brought him to the post as fit and well as he was
the day he won the Ebor that he'd win?"
"What, fit and well as he was when he won the Great Ebor, and with
six-seven on his back? He'd walk away with it."
"You don't think any of the three-year-olds would have a chance with him?
A Derby winner with seven stone on his back might beat him."
"Yes, but nothing short of that. Even then old Ben would make a race of
it. A nailing good horse once. A little brown horse about fifteen two, as
compact as a leg of Welsh mutton.... But there's no use in thinking of
him. They've been trying for years to train him. Didn't they used to get
the flesh off him in a Turkish bath? That was Fulton's notion. He used to
say that it didn't matter 'ow you got the flesh off so long as you got it
off. Every pound of flesh off the lungs is so much wind, he used to say.
But the Turkish bath trained horses came to the post limp as old rags. If
a 'orse 'asn't the legs you can't train him. Every pound of flesh yer take
off must put a pound 'o 'ealth on. They'll do no good with old Ben, unless
they've found out a way of growing on him a pair of new forelegs. The old
ones won't do for my money."
"But do you think that Courtney will take the same view of his
capabilities as you do--do you think he'll let him off as easily as you
have?"
"He can't give him much more.... The 'orse is bound to get in at seven
stone, rather under than over."
"I'm glad to 'ear yer say so, for I know you've a headpiece, and 'as all
the running in there." Stack tapped his forehead. "Now, I'd like to ask
you if there's any three-year-olds that would be likely to interfere with
him?"
"Derby and Leger winners will get from eight stone to eight stone ten, and
three-year-olds ain't no good over the Cesarewitch course with more than
eight on their backs."