Miss Beverley handed him five shillings.
"And if the horse does n't win I shall never speak to you again," she concluded; and from the tone of her voice I could not help feeling that she meant what she said.
"What is your selection this time, Connie?" asked Sylvia.
Miss Damer produced a dirty pink envelope and began to open it.
Dicky laughed.
"Connie has been patronising a tipster," he said.
"I got this," explained Miss Damer, "from a man on the course. His name was Lively. He was trying to earn an honest living, he said, by supplying reliable stable information to sportsmen; but he did n't seem to be getting on very well, poor thing! People were standing all round him in a ring, laughing, and nobody would buy any of his envelopes, although he had given lots of them the winner of the first race for nothing. Just then he caught sight of Dicky and me standing on the edge of the crowd. He pushed his way towards us, and said that if I bought one of his tips, he knew it would bring him luck. He said," Miss Damer added with a smile of genuine gratification, "that I was a beautiful young lady. So I bought one of his envelopes, and after that a lot of other people did, too."
Dicky grinned.
"Yes; that was the point at which we ought to have passed along quietly," he said.
"Did n't you?" I asked.