“Yah! Rubbish! My book’s chock.”
“But it’s the tippiest tip, sir, as ever was,” whispered the man from behind his hand. “Worth a Jew’s eye.”
“I’m fly, Dinny,” said the trainer, with a wink. “Tell it to some one else. I don’t trade to-day.”
“You’ll repent it, Mr Sam, sir,” whispered the man, earnestly, and with many nods and jerks of the head, as he kept looking about furtively to see that they were not overheard.
“Of course. All right,” said the trainer, contemptuously. “Down on your luck, eh, Dinny?”
“Terrible, sir.”
“Want a drink?”
The man smiled, and drew the back of a dirty hand across his cracked and fevered lips.
“Go round to the tap and say I sent you. Here, twist those cards round.”
The man obeyed promptly, and after placing the point of his black lead-pencil to his lips the trainer scrawled laboriously: “One drink.—S.S.”