I was making a note of Buchan’s claims, when a man with a Thermos flask lashed to his side began to praise Dominion.  Dominion, it seems, was third in the Two Thousand Guineas—­only just behind Buchan, who was just behind The Panther.  Many people thought The Panther unduly lucky that day.  A very different course, too, at Newmarket from that at Epsom.  Obviously Dominion must be remembered.  Moreover he was being greatly fancied and some of the best judges looked to him to win the Blue Riband for Lord GLANELY.  The fact that Lord GLANELY drew his own horse in the Baltic Sweep was not to be sneezed at either, said some one.  That’s an omen if there ever was one!  And it knocked out Lord GLANELY’S other horse, Grand Parade.

“Well, here’s a tip,” cried a man with a frock-coat and a straw hat.  “Blest if I’ve got a single coin left—­nothing but paper money.  That’s good enough for me.  I shall back Paper Money.”

The carriage agreed that that was his duty.  “Of course you must,” they said.  “When everyone disagrees in the way that the experts do, you might as well take a tip like that as anything.”

Paper Money had therefore to be added also to my list of possibles.

“Besides,” said another man, “DONOGHUE rides him; our leading jockey, you know.”  I had forgotten to look at the jockeys’ names.  How absurd!  Of course one must back DONOGHUE.

But just then, “Give me WHALLEY,” said the man with the asbestos beard, and, as WHALLEY was riding Bay of Naples, I had to consider him too.  Naples was a jolly place and I had had a lot of fun there.  Hadn’t I better make that my tip?

But, on the other hand, what about Tangiers?  I had had fun there too, and more than one fellow-passenger had darkly hinted that this was a much better animal than public form proclaimed.  Looking for particulars, I found that he once “ran Galloper Light to a head;” which had a promising sound.  He was trained at Lambourne too, and I like Lambourne.  There is a good inn there and it is a fine walk to White Horse Hill.

“Well,” said another man, who had been borrowing matches from his neighbour ever since Victoria, “I always had a feeling for a Marcovil colt.  Marcovil is a good sire.  I ’ve had some very special information about Milton, the Marcovil colt, to-day.”

MILTON!—­one of my favourite poets, and also one of Mr. ASQUITH’S, as he said in that lecture last week.  Yes, but is Mr. ASQUITH exactly lucky just now?  Perhaps not.  And did not MILTON write Paradise Lost?  True.  But, on the other hand, he wrote Paradise Regained.  You see how difficult tip-hunting can be!

And so it went on and I emerged from the Epsom Downs station in a maze of indecision, in which one fact and one only shone with crystal clearness, and that was that whatever won the race The Panther had no better chance, even though it had been made favourite, than any other.

“Besides,” as one of the two men who sat on my knees had said, “What’s a favourite anyway?  Very often a horse is made a favourite by the bookies, in conjunction with the Press, just so as everyone will back it.  No, no favourites for me.  Give me a likely outsider at good odds.  Look what you have to put on The Panther to win anything.”