Gawd! His horse! They flashed past—fifty yards to go, and not a head between ’em!
“Deerstalker! Deerstalker!” “Calliope!”
He saw his mare shoot out—she’d won!
With a little queer sound he squirmed and wriggled on to the stairs. No thoughts while he squeezed, and slid, and hurried—only emotion—out of the Ring, away to the paddock. His horse!
Docker had weighed in when he reached the mare. All right! He passed with a grin. ‘Jimmy’ turned almost into the body of Polman standing like an image.
“Well, Mr. Shrewin,” he said to nobody, “she’s won.”
‘Damn you!’ thought ‘Jimmy.’ ‘Damn the lot of you!’ And he went up to his mare. Quivering, streaked with sweat, impatient of the gathering crowd, she showed the whites of her eyes when he put his hand up to her nose.
“Good girl!” he said, and watched her led away.
‘Gawd! I want a drink!’ he thought.
Gingerly, keeping a sharp lookout for Pulcher, he returned to the stand to get it, and to draw his hundred. But up there by the stairs the discreet fellow was no more. On the ticket was the name O. H. Jones, and nothing else. ‘Jimmy’ Shrewin had been welshed! He went down at last in a bad temper. At the bottom of the staircase stood George Pulcher. The big man’s face was crimson, his eyes ominous. He blocked ‘Jimmy’ into a corner.