He whistled mad waltzes to the measure of the wheels.  He believed that he had a star.  He pitched his half-crowns to the turnpike-men, and sought to propitiate Fortune by displaying a signal indifference to small change; in which method of courting her he was perfectly serious.  He absolutely rejected coppers.  They “crossed his luck.”  Nor can we say that he is not an authority on this point:  the Goddess certainly does not deal in coppers.

Anxious efforts at recollection perplexed him.  He could not remember whether he had “turned his money” on looking at the last new moon.  When had he seen the last new moon, and where?  A cloud obscured it; he had forgotten.  He consoled himself by cursing superstition.  Tenpenny Nail was to gain the day in spite of fortune.  Algernon said this, and entrenched his fluttering spirit behind common sense, but he found it a cold corner.  The longing for Champagne stimulant increased in fervour.  Arithmetic languished.

As he was going up the hill, the wheels were still for a moment, and hearing “Tenpenny Nail” shouted, he put forth his head, and asked what the cry was, concerning that horse.

“Gone lame,” was the answer.

It hit the centre of his nerves, without reaching his comprehension, and all Englishmen being equal on Epsom Downs, his stare at the man who had spoken, and his sickly colour, exposed him to pungent remarks.

“Hullos! here’s another Ninepenny—­a penny short!” and similar specimens of Epsom wit, encouraged by the winks and retorts of his driver, surrounded him; but it was empty clamour outside.  A rage of emotions drowned every idea in his head, and when he got one clear from the mass, it took the form of a bitter sneer at Providence, for cutting off his last chance of reforming his conduct and becoming good.  What would he not have accomplished, that was brilliant, and beautiful, and soothing, but for this dead set against him!

It was clear that Providence cared “not a rap,” whether he won or lost—­was good or bad.  One might just as well be a heathen; why not?

He jumped out of the cab (tearing his coat in the acts minor evil, but “all of a piece,” as he said), and made his way to the Ring.  The bee-swarm was thick as ever on the golden bough.  Algernon heard no curses, and began to nourish hope again, as he advanced.  He began to hope wildly that this rumour about the horse was a falsity, for there was no commotion, no one declaiming.

He pushed to enter the roaring circle, which the demand for an entrance-fee warned him was a privilege, and he stammered, and forgot the gentlemanly coolness commonly distinguishing him, under one of the acuter twinges of his veteran complaint of impecuniosity.  And then the cabman made himself heard:  a civil cabman, but without directions, and uncertain of his dinner and his pay, tolerably hot, also, from threading a crowd after a deaf gentleman.  His half-injured look restored to Algernon his self-possession.