Dangerous Dilemmas: Startling but True

by James Anderson Peddie

"Would I not, if I had the chance," replied the Jew, taking the valuable slip of paper out of his pocket book.

This was exactly what I wanted. It was no good proposing to pay unless the Jew had the scratching order with him.

"Well, here is your money," I said, handing him the notes with one hand and taking possession of the order with the other. "We prefer to win the Cambridgeshire."

You never saw a man look so amazed as that Jew did in all your life. I went instantly to the window and nodded to a groom who had had his instructions, and he galloped away with my telegrams. No entreaty on our part would induce Abrahams to partake of luncheon. An important engagement in town prevented him. He had come down at great inconvenience to oblige Mr. Marston, and now he was anxious to get back to business. Would Mr. Marston send him to the station, a distance of five miles, in the dog cart? He was anxious to get back to stop the lay commissioners he had set to work. The dog cart was ordered round, but a strange thing happened—a wheel came off which delayed the impatient Abrahams some time. From the unpleasant way he looked at me, he appeared to think he owed the detention to me. When he did get to London Santorin was quoted in the evening papers at 6 to 1 taken and wanted, and it is highly probable that Abrahams went to his home in an unpleasant frame of mind.

A sporting journal of the next day said, in reference to the previous afternoon's betting: "There has evidently been nothing the matter with Santorin, as there was an unlimited commission in the market yesterday to back him. The training reports speak very favourably of the work he is doing from day-to-day, and his present condition; and those who, from some unexplained cause, have been taking liberties with the horse must be in an uncomfortable position. The getting out will be ruinous."

There is little more to tell—the Jew was outwitted, and has kept aloof from the turf ever since.

Santorin started for that year's Cambridgeshire at the shortest price ever known, and as the hedging was so good we stood to win a large fortune to nothing. It was excessively provoking to get beaten on the post by a head, by a horse two years older and carrying the same weight.

Thanks to Miss Emerson the difficulty was overcome, and if that young lady had not caught scarlet fever when attending to her cousins and died, she might be sitting opposite me now bearing another name, and I might be leading a more profitable life.

Mr. Marston behaved very badly, and I was justified after the Cambridgeshire in severing all business connections with such a very unreliable partner.