“You’re quite right, and I usually am,” he admitted. “But I always had this little lot banked away for just such a chance as this. It was an awkward amount you see—too big to splash on a spree, and not enough to do anything big with. It just fits in here.”
“But why take such a heavy risk with it?” she asked. “Surely there were safer things to do with it?”
“Have you ever gone to a horse race?” he asked.
“Yes, but I don’t see——”
“Then you’ve had a bet on a race—a shilling, or a box of chocolates, or a pair of gloves, perhaps?”
“Yes,” she admitted again.
“Then you know how much more interesting the race is when you have a bet on. Same thing with cards, a game’s mighty poor fun unless you play for coins or counters. Well, the sheep here are the coins and counters in the game we’re playing out, and I want to have my stake on the table along with the rest. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she said, “I understand, although I don’t need anything of my own in this to give me an interest. I’m hugely, tensely interested as it is, and I want to see the sheep pull through, and the boss and all of you win, as if every sheep were my own.”
“That’s because you have the personal interest,” he said. “Because your uncle and every soul you know here is doing nothing else, and thinking of nothing else, but whether we’re going to win, and how we’re going to win.”
“Yes, that’s true,” she said, “and I confess I am keener than ever since I’ve met the boss, and will be more so since I’ve heard of the personal interest you have in it.”