“All the better for us.  Take all they’ll lay against me.  It’s as good as our having a ‘Commission out’; and if any cads get one against us it can’t mean mischief, as it would with professional jocks.”

“Are you so sure of yourself, Beauty?”

Beauty shook his head repudiatingly.

“Never am sure of anything, much less of myself.  I’m a chameleon, a perfect chameleon!”

“Are you so sure of the King, then?”

“My dear fellow, no!  I ask you in reason, how can I be sure of what isn’t proved?  I’m like that country fellow the old story tells of; he believed in fifteen shillings because he’d once had it in his hand; others, he’d heard, believed in a pound; but, for his part, he didn’t, because he’d never seen it.  Now that was a man who’d never commit himself; he might had had the Exchequer!  I’m the same; I believe the King can win at a good many things because I’ve seen him do ’em; but I can’t possibly tell whether he can get this, because I’ve never ridden him for it.  I shall be able to tell you at three o’clock—­but that you don’t care for——­”

And Bertie, exhausted with making such a lengthened exposition—­the speeches he preferred were monosyllabic—­completed his sins against training with a long draught of claret-cup.

“Then what the devil do you mean by telling us to pile our pots on you?” asked the outraged Coldstreamer, with natural wrath.

“Faith is a beautiful sight!” said Bertie, with solemnity.

“Offered on the altar of the Jews!” laughed the Seraph, as he turned him away from the breakfast table by the shoulders.  “Thanks, Beauty; I’ve ‘four figures’ on you, and you’ll be good enough to win them for me.  Let’s have a look at the King.  They are just going to walk him over.”

Cecil complied; while he lounged away with the others to the stables, with a face of the most calm, gentle, weary indifference in the world, the thought crossed him for a second of how very near he was to the wind.  The figures in his betting-book were to the tune of several thousands, one way or another.  If he won this morning it would be all right, of course; if he lost—­even Beauty, odd mixture of devil-may-care and languor though he was, felt his lips grow, for the moment, hot and cold by turns as he thought of that possible contingency.

The King looked in splendid condition; he knew well enough what was up again, knew what was meant by that extra sedulous dressing-down, that setting muzzle that had been buckled on him some nights previous, the limitation put to his drink, the careful trial spins in the gray of the mornings, the conclusive examination of his plates by a skillful hand; he knew what was required of him, and a horse in nobler condition never stepped out in body clothing, as he was ridden slowly down on to the plains of Iffesheim.  The Austrian Dragoon, a Count and a Chamberlain likewise, who was to ride his only possible rival, the French horse L’Etoile, pulled his tawny silken mustaches as he saw the great English hero come up the course, and muttered to himself, “L’affaire est finie.”  L’Etoile was a brilliant enough bay in his fashion, but Count Ruteroth knew the measure of his pace and powers too thoroughly to expect him to live against the strides of the Guards’ gray.