Mr. Immelbern broke off in the middle of an improvised hornpipe.
"It's like this," he explained exuberantly. "We've got a sike — sidekick—"
"Psychic," said the Colonel.
"A bloke who can tell the future. He puts his hands over his eyes and reads the winners off like you'd read them out of a paper. He did it four times this afternoon. We're going to take him in with us. We had a job to persuade him — he was going off to the South of France tonight — can you imagine it, a bloke with a gift like that going away while there's any racing here? We had to give him five hundred quid advance on the money we told him we were going to make for him to make him put it off. But it's worth it. We'll start tomorrow, and if this fellow Templar—"
"Ow, that's 'is nime, is it?" said the pimply youth brightly. "I wondered wot was goin' on."
There was a short puzzled silence.
"How do you mean — what was going on?" asked the Colonel at length.
"Well," said the pimply youth, "when Sid was ringing up all the afternoon, practic'ly every rice—"
"What d'you mean?" croaked Mr. Immelbern. "I rang up every race?"
"Yus, an' I was giving' you the winners, an' you were syin' 'Two 'undred pounds on Baby Face for Mr. Templar' — Tour 'undred pounds on Cellophane for Mr. Templar' — gettin' bigger an' bigger all the time an' never givin' 'im a loser — well, I started to wonder wot was 'appening."