“‘Put me down for it!’ you answer.
“They are on the home run. There is a great hubbub, like the roaring of a tornado, as they sweep under the line, yellow ahead. You swing your hat, and yell as loud as you can. You are ten thousand in. Oh, it is just the jolliest excitement a man can have!”
“If you win, my lord, does not somebody else lose?”
“Of course, Miss Newville.”
“Do they feel equally jolly?”
“Possibly not. Sometimes we are out of pocket, and do not feel quite so hilarious, but we swallow a stiff nipper of brandy and draw our checks like men. I won five thousand from Lord Pilkington, three thousand from Lady Merryfield, and quite a number of one hundred pounders from the ladies of my set, who bet on the blue, while I planked mine on the yellow. You see, Miss Newville, that ladies are sometimes influenced by fancy. Lady Somers, for instance, allowed fancy to get the better of judgment. She likes blue as a color, above yellow. She is quite horsey, and thinks she can drive a tandem. I had examined blue, felt of his muscles, and made up my mind that by and by he would have ringbone on his left fore leg. I believed that yellow had the best wind and bottom; but the ladies followed the lead of Lady Somers, and so I raked in their shekels. They all ponied up promptly, though, and paid their outs, like true-born English ladies.”
“I do not think,” said Miss Newville, “that I should like to lose or win money in that way.”
“Why, Miss Newville, once get into it, and you would say it is the most delightful sport in the world. If you think, however, that you would not like to participate in such pleasures, we have the fox hunt, which is the most charming and innocent diversion imaginable. You don’t bet any money in that, but have a rollicking good time riding over the country, ladies and gentlemen—leaping hedges and ditches, following the hounds, running Reynard to cover, and having a lunch at the close of the hunt.”
“Foxes are plentiful in this country, but we do not run them down with horses,” Miss Newville replied.