tobacco.  As he takes his change from the tobacconist, he asks:  “Have you heard anything for to-morrow?” The tobacconist says:  “I heard Green Cloak for the first race,” The racing man nods.  “You didn’t hear anything for the big race?” he asks.  “No.  Somebody was saying Holy Saint.”  “I heard Oily Hair,” says the racing man gravely.  “Good-night.”  And he goes out.  His brow becomes knitted with thought as he moves off along the pavement.  He tells himself that Holy Saint certainly does offer difficulties.  Holy Saint is a notoriously bad starter.  If he could be trusted to get away, he would be one of the finest horses of his year in long-distance races.  But he is continually being left at the post.  To back him would be pure gambling.  He could win if he liked, but would he like?  On the whole, Oily Hair is a safer horse to back.  He has already beaten Holy Saint in the Chiswick Cup, and only lost the Scotch Plate to Disaster by a neck.  As the racing man allows his memory to dwell on the achievements of Oily Hair his confidence rises.  “I see nothing to beat him,” he says to himself.  He has just decided to put “a fiver” on him when he meets an acquaintance, who suggests a drink.  As they drink, the talk turns on horses.  “What are you backing in the big race to-morrow?” “Have you heard anything?” “I heard Oily Hair.”  “I think not.  I’ll tell you why.  Tommy Fitzgibbon’s youngest sister is at school with two sisters of Willie Soames, who’s going to ride Peace on Earth to-morrow, and one of them told her that Willie had written to her to put every halfpenny she has on Peace on Earth.”  “I’m sick, sore and tired of backing Peace on Earth.  He’s a cantankerous beast that seems to take a positive pleasure in losing races.”  “Well, remember what I told you....”

On arriving home our sportsman goes to his shelves and takes down the last annual volume of M’Call’s Racing Chronicle and Pocket Turf Calendar, and looks up Peace on Earth in the index.  He turns up the record of one race after another, and finds that the horse has a better past than he had remembered.  He cannot make up his mind what to do.  He looks over several weekly papers to see if any of them can throw light on his difficulties.  Each of them names a different winner for the big race.  When he puts on his pyjamas that night, all he knows is that he has decided to decide nothing till the next day.

Next day he once more reads the names of the horses entered for the various races, and glances down the list of winners selected by the racing prophet in the morning paper.  Having breakfasted late, he finds he has only about an hour to waste before catching a train for the races, and he resolves to pay a call at the “Bird of Paradise,” where a friend of his who has an unusual gift for picking up information is usually to be found about noon.  He learns from the landlord that his friend has been in and gone away, but the landlord tells him that he hears Pudding is a certainty.