and galloped home an easy
winner. So little was the successful brute distressed by his race that
he began to caper out of sheer light-heartedness when he was led back to
the enclosure, and he very soon cleared the place in his gambols--in
fact, he could have run another race within half an hour after the first
one. In the autumn this same winner strained a ligament; but in spite of
the accident he ran for another important prize, and his lightning speed
served him in good stead, for he came in second for the St. Leger. Well,
in the spring this animal was entered in a handicap race, and the weight
which he had to carry seemed so trifling that good judges thought he
must romp over the course and win with ease. Hundreds of thousands of
dolts rushed to wager their money on this chance, and the horse's owner,
who is anything but a fool, proceeded to back his own property lavishly.
Now a certain number of the betting-rogues appeared to know
something--if I may be pardoned for using their repulsive
phraseology--and, so long as any one was willing to bet on the horse,
they were ready to lay against him. Still the pigeons would not take
warning by this ominous symptom; they had chances enough to keep clear
of danger, but they flocked into the snare in their confused fashion. A
grain of common sense would have made them ask, "Why do these shrewd,
hard men seem so certain that our favourite must lose? Are they the kind
of persons who risk thousands in hard cash unless they know particularly
well what they are doing? They bet with an air of certainty, though some
of them must be almost ruined if they have made a miscalculation; they
defy even the owner of the animal, and they cheerfully give him the
opportunity of putting down thousands if he wishes to do so. There must
be some reason for this assurance which at first sight looks so very
overweening. Better have a care!"

Thus would common sense have counselled the victims; but, alas, common
sense is usually left out of the composition of the betting-man's
victim, and the flood of honest money rolled into the keeping of men who
are certainly no more than indifferent honest. The day of the race came;
the great gaping public dipped their hands in their pockets and accepted
short odds about their precious certainty. When the flag fell for the
start, the most wildly extravagant odds were offered against the
favourite by the men who had been betting against him all along, for
they saw v