t was said, with one of Ikey's Own at his bedside, and
another over his door, to see that no harm befell him before the great
day dawned. America might not like the great jockey, but she meant him
to ride her mare to victory.

Lord Milburn, a somewhat ponderous gentleman, well-known with the Quorn,
a representative Imperialist statesman, was at his best. And if his
best was never very good, at least his references to Mocassin brought
down the house.

"She is something moa than the best steeplechaser that ever looked
through a bridle-ah," he announced in his somewhat portentous way. "She
is--in my judgment--the realization of a dream. In her have met once
more the two great streams of the Anglo-Saxon race. You have every right
to be proud of hah; and so, I venture to say, have we. For we of the old
country claim our share in the mare. She comes, I say, in the last
resort--the last resort--of English thoroughbred stock. (Cheers,
Counter-cheers.) And if she wins to-morrah--as she will (cheers), 'Given
fair play'" came a voice from the back. "_That_ she will get--(cheers
and boos)--the people of this country will rejoice that another edifice
has been laid to the mighty brick--ah of Anglo-Saxon fellowship on which
the hope, and I think I may say, the happiness of the world depends."

The evening ended, as the Liverpool _Herald_ reported, at two in the
morning, when Abe Gideon, the bark-blocks comedian, was hoisted on to
the table and sang the _Mocassin Song_ to a chorus that set the water in
the docks rocking.

CHAPTER XLVI

The Sefton Arms

Old Mat never stopped in Liverpool for the big race.

That was partly because everybody else did, and partly because he always
preferred The Sefton Arms upon the course. When his little daughter
first took to accompanying her dad to the National she used to stay the
night with a Methodist cousin of her mother's and join her father on the
course next morning.

This time she refused point-blank to favour Cousin Agatha, and further
refused to argue the matter. She was going with her father to The Sefton
Arms. Mrs. Woodburn was genuinely distressed, so much so indeed that
Silver heard her hold forth for the first time in his knowledge of her
on the modern mother's favourite theme--the daughter of to-day.

Old Mat gave her little sympathy.

"She's said she's goin', so goin' she is," he grunted matter-of-factly.
"No argifyin's no good when she's said that. You might know th