“But I must warn you,” continued Sam, “that it is not all beer and skittles. It will be awkward if the favourites win the first few races, because you will have to cut and run, and your business is as good as done for in that line for the future. But there is no good meeting trouble half-way. I’ll see you launched when the game is pretty right. All the same, it is as well to be prepared for a belting.”
“I’m ready,” said Alec. “I can stand hard knocks with anybody.”
Huey had said nothing to all this. The possibility of being hunted as a blackleg was not tempting to him, so he turned a look on Soft Sam, which the old gentleman seemed to understand.
“I suppose now the hard knocks and the clearing racket are hardly in your line?”
“I can’t say they are,” answered Huey.
“So I thought. You want a gentlemanly occupation, without risk, no trouble to speak of, and bags full of profit?”
“That’s just about my complaint.”
“Then here’s the very thing? You must start as a turf prophet. You have been on a newspaper and can string words together, and that is what is wanted.”
“But I know no more about horses or who is likely to win than Cook’s statue over there.”
“No more does any other turf prophet. Do you think that even if they knew one certainty they would not go and pawn their shirts, make their pile, and retire to private life? Do you think these men are what they call philanthropists, who sell turf knowledge, equal to bank-notes, to the first comers, at five bob a head? Of course the public does—that Al copper-fastened fool, the public. You will have to learn the ‘pitch’—that’s easy. Always refer to the ‘stable,’ what the stable says, what the stable think. And when your tip loses, as it generally will, ‘Very sorry I could not tell you sooner. But at the last moment the stable decided to run him stiff. Could not get the money on. Ring was afraid of him. So they are saving him. Will be a dead bird for sure the next handicap, and I shall have the straight wire, you make no error.’ That’s about the total of it; of course you will vary it a bit, just for variety, ‘The stable has been forestalled; the owner is saving him for the Cup, and the stable did not know till the last moment. The jockey was got at.’ Or, supposing it’s a mare, then it was ‘one of her off days.’ The fact is, the game is too simple for a smart man. To an old fisherman it is like catching yellowtail.”