“'Ere's Blue Fire,” he says, stopping at that animal's stall, and swinging his race book. “Good old Blue Fire!” he goes on loudly, as a little court collects. “Jimmy B——” (mentioning a popular jockey) “told me he couldn't have lost on Saturday week if he had only been ridden different. I had a good stake on him, too, that day. Lor', the races that has been chucked away on this horse. They will not ride him right.”
A trainer who is standing by, civilly interposes. “This isn't Blue Fire,” he says. “Blue Fire's out walking about. This is a two-year-old filly that's in the stall——”
“Well, I can see that, can't I,” says the Oracle, crushingly. “You don't suppose I thought Blue Fire was a mare, did you?” and he moves off hurriedly.
“Now, look here, you chaps,” he says to his followers at last. “You wait here. I want to go and see a few of the talent, and it don't do to have a crowd with you. There's Jimmy M—— over there now” (pointing to a leading trainer). “I'll get hold of him in a minute. He couldn't tell me anything with so many about. Just you wait here.”
He crushes into a crowd that has gathered round the favourite's stall, and overhears one hard-faced racing man say to another, “What do you like?” to which the other answers, “Well, either this or Royal Scot. I think I'll put a bit on Royal Scot.” This is enough for the Oracle. He doesn't know either of the men from Adam, or either of the horses from the great original pachyderm, but the information will do to go on with. He rejoins his followers, and looks very mysterious.
“Well, did you hear anything?” they say.
The Oracle talks low and confidentially.
“The crowd that have got the favourite tell me they're not afraid of anything but Royal Scot,” he says. “I think we'd better put a bit on both.”
“What did the Royal Scot crowd say?” asks an admirer deferentially.
“Oh, they're going to try and win. I saw the stable commissioner, and he told me they were going to put a hundred on him. Of course, you needn't say I told you, 'cause I promised him I wouldn't tell.” And the satellites beam with admiration of the Oracle, and think what a privilege it is to go to the races with such a knowing man.