"I don't. My bit isn't bettin'; I just put a shillin' on now and again for the fun of the thing. Where's the harm in that?" he asked.
"I suppose you know best, Brack, and you've always been a good son to me," she said.
"And I always shall, have no fear of that, mother." And she had not; her faith in him was unbounded.
Brack looked quite rakish, so he told himself, when he gazed in a mirror in the hat shop next day, on the way to the station. He had been to the barber's, had his whiskers and mustache trimmed, his hair cut, and a shampoo.
"I'm fresh as paint," he said to Rose, who was glad to see him so respectable. The smell of the sea hung about him, but it was tempered by some very patent hair oil which emitted an overpowering scent.
Several porters spoke to Brack, asking where he was going.
"Doncaster to see the Leger run."
They laughed and one said: "Bet you a bob you don't get farther than Exeter."
"Don't want to rob you, Tommy," was the reply. "I'll give you chaps a tip—have a shilling or two on Tearaway."
"Never heard of him."