The idea and the name for it were the invention of the ingenious Piggott. I am his first initiate, and with the zeal of the neophyte I am endeavouring to make his discovery more widely known. The game, which is healthy and invigorating, can be carried on in any of the remoter suburbs, where the train-service is not too frequent. All that is required is a fairly long and fairly straight piece of road, terminating in a railway-station, and a sufficiency of City men of suitable age and rotundity.
The scheme is based on the Herd instinct—on the tendency of most creatures to follow their leader. For example, if you are walking down to your early train, with plenty of time to spare as you suppose, and you observe the man in front of you looking at his watch and suddenly quickening his steps, first to a smart walk, then to a brisk jog-trot, it is not in human nature, however you may trust your own watch, not to follow suit. This is precisely what Piggott led me to do one morning about six weeks back.
When, on reaching the station ten minutes too early, I remonstrated with him, he apologised.
"I am sorry," he said; "I didn't know you were behind me. I was really pace-making for 'Flyaway'—there, over there." And Piggott pointed to a stoutish man with iron-grey whiskers mopping his forehead and the inside of his hat, and looking incredulously at the booking-hall clock.
"But that is Mr. Bludyer, senior partner in Bludyer, Spinnaway & Jevons," I said.
"It may be," replied Piggott. "But I call him Flyaway. I find it more convenient to have a stable-name for each of my racers." And he proceeded to expound his invention to me.
Like so many great inventors he had stumbled upon the idea by chance one morning when his watch happened to be wrong; but he had developed the inspiration with consummate art and skill. It became his diversion, by means of the pantomime that had so successfully deceived me—by dramatically shooting out his wrist, consulting his watch, instantly stepping out and presently breaking into a run—to induce any gentleman behind him who had reached an age when the fear of missing trains has become an obsession to accelerate his progress.
"It is amazing," he said, "how many knots you can get out of the veriest old tubs. This morning, for instance, Flyaway has taken only a little over six minutes to cover seven furlongs. That's the best I have got out of him so far, but I hope to do better with some of the others."
"You keep more than one in training?" I questioned.
"Several. If you like I will hand some over to you. Or, better still," he added, "you might prefer to start a stable of your own. That would introduce an element of competition. What about it?"