This was the telegram that, after much hesitation, I had written out
at the side desk in the post-office and carried to the main desk to
despatch:--
Pactolus, London.
St. Vitus carburetter stammer tyre scream Sanguine.
You will observe that it is unintelligible. Decoded, it meant that I,
whose betting pseudonym is Sanguine, wished to invest with Messrs.
Lure, commission agents (not bookmakers, no, not for a moment),
whose telegraphic address is "Pactolus, London," a sum of ten pounds
(carburetter) on a horse called St. Vitus to win (stammer), and twenty
pounds (tyre) for a place (scream). I had done this for various
reasons, none really good, but chiefly because every paper that I had
opened had urged me to do so, some even going so far as to dangle a
double before me with St. Vitus as one of the horses. Nearly all had
described St. Vitus as a nap, setting up the name not only in capitals
but with a faithful asterisk beside it.
Having an account with Messrs. Lure and a liking now and then to
indulge in a little flutter over a gee (I am choosing my words very
carefully) I had decided, after weighing the claims of all the other
runners, to take the advice of the majority and back the favourite,
although favourites acclaimed with stridency by the racing experts
of the Press in unison have, I knew, a way of failing. In betting on
races, however, there are two elements that are never lacking: hope
against hope and an incomplete recollection of the past.
Having written out the telegram I took it to the main counter, to the
section labelled "Telegrams," and slipped it under the grating towards
the young woman, who, however, instead of dealing with it, continued
to tell an adjacent young woman about the arrangements that she and a
friend had made for their forthcoming holidays at Herne Bay.
The nature of those who have little flutters on gees is complex. The
ordinary man, having written out his telegram, on whatever subject
it may be--whether it announces that he will arrive before lunch and
bring his clubs with him, or that, having important business to detain
him at the office, he will not be home to dinner--gets it through
as soon as possible. He may be delayed by the telegraph girl's
detachment, but he would not be deterred. He would still send the
telegram. But those who bet are different. They are minutely sensitive
to outside occurrences; always seeking signs and interpreting them as
favourable or unfavourable as the case may be; and refraining from
doing anything so decisive as to call the girl to order. Their game
is to be plastic under the fingers of chance; the faintest breath of
dubiety can sway them. I had been in so many minds about this thirty
pound bet, which I could not really afford, that there was therefore
nothing for it, after waiting the two minutes that seemed to be ten,
but to tear up the message, in the belief that the friendly gods again
had intervened. For luck is as much an affair of refraining as of
rushing in.
I therefore withdrew quietly from the conversation and scattered the
little bits on the floor as I did so. But I did not leave the office.
Instead, I went to the side desk again and wrote another telegram,
which, with the necessary money (an awful lot), I pushed through the
grating, where the girls were still talking. My second telegram had
no reference to horses--I had done with gambling for the day--but ran
thus:--
Postmaster-General, London.
Suggest you remind telegraph clerk on duty at this hour at this
post-office that she perhaps talks a shade too much about Herne
Bay and gives public too little consideration.
The girl, having ceased her chatter, took the telegram and began
feverishly to count the words. Then her tapping pencil slowed down and
her brows contracted; she was assimilating their meaning. Then, with a
blush, and a very becoming one, she looked at me with an expression of
distress and said, "Do you really want this to go?"
"No," I said, withdrawing the money.
"I'm sorry I was not more attentive," she said.
"That's all right," I replied. "Tear it up."
And I came away, feeling, with a certain glow of satisfaction not
unmixed with self-righteousness, that I had done something to raise
the post-office standard and to ensure better attention. But the joke
is that, if I had myself received better attention, I should have lost
thirty pounds, for St. Vitus was unplaced. This story must therefore
remain without a moral.