‘I’ll go and see ’em come out of the paddock,’ he thought, and moved on, skimpy in his bell-shaped coat and billycock with flattened brim. The clamour of the Rings rose behind him while he was entering the paddock.
Very green, very peaceful, there; not many people, yet! Three horses in the second race were being led slowly in a sort of winding ring; and men were clustering round the further gate where the horses would come out. ‘Jimmy’ joined them, sucking at his cheroot. They were a picture! Damn it! he didn’t know but that ’orses laid over men! Pretty creatures!
One by one they passed out of the gate, a round dozen. Selling platers, but pictures for all that!
He turned back towards the horses being led about; and the old instinct to listen took him close to little groups. Talk was all of the big race. From a tall ‘toff’ he caught the word Calliope.
“Belongs to a bookie, they say.”
Bookie! Why not? Wasn’t a bookie as good as any other? Ah! and sometimes better than these young snobs with everything to their hand! A bookie—well, what chance had he ever had?
A big brown horse came by.
“That’s Deerstalker,” he heard the ‘toff’ say.
‘Jimmy’ gazed at George Pulcher’s fancy with a sort of hostility. Here came another—Wasp, six stone ten, and Deerstalker nine stone—top and bottom of the race!