t his hand to his purse, for the calling of the cab had
not been a premeditated matter. He discovered therein some half-crowns
and a sixpence, the latter of which he tossed in contempt at some boys
who were cheering the vehicles on their gallant career.

There was something desperately amusing to him in the thought that he had
not even money enough to pay the cabman, or provide for a repast. He
rollicked in his present poverty. Yesterday he had run down with a party
of young guardsmen in a very royal manner; and yesterday he had lost.
To-day he journeyed to the course poorer than many of the beggars he
would find there; and by a natural deduction, to-day he was to win.

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.