The jockey stared at her and at Watson. Watson laughed, a trifle too hard. "I'm a great ventriloquist," he explained. "Can't break myself of the habit."
"Well, you better begin now," the jockey said, "because I'm temperamental and when I'm emotionally disturbed the horse senses it."
"The horses," the announcer declaimed through the loudspeaker, "are at the post.... They're off!... All of them, that is, except Incubus. She can't get through the starting gate. She's stuck."
"Yah, wear a girdle!" the crowd called derisively.
With a wrench of sheer rage Incubus pulled herself through the gate and dashed after the other horses. "In the backstretch it's Pamplemousse in the lead with Disestablishmentarianism and Epigram running half a length behind and.... But who's this coming up from the rear? It's Incubus! She's ahead by a length.... By two lengths.... By three lengths! What a horse! What a jockey! He's giving her the whip!... Oh, oh, something's wrong. Incubus has lost her rider! Too bad, Incubus."
The horses raced up the stretch, with Incubus keeping five lengths ahead of Pamplemousse as per direction. She was much annoyed to discover that he had won the race.
"But I won it!" she kept whispering to Watson as he led her off. "I was first. This is a frame-up. I'm going right to the judges and raise an objection."
"It doesn't count if you don't have the jockey on you," he told her. "That's the rule."
"Flap the rules!" she said. "You mean without that pee-wee it doesn't count? A fine thing! I hate the rules, I hate the rules, I hate the rules!" She stamped her foot. "He hit me with a whip, the little bastard, so I gave him the old heave-ho."
"Aw, come on now, Incubus, we'll get another jockey who won't whip you. You see how easy you can win a race?"