ed censorious and untouched.

"Pull you down! You'll never pull off the race if you sit drinking
liqueurs all the morning!" growled that censor. "Look at that!"

Bertie glanced at the London telegram tossed across to him, sent from a
private and confidential agent.

"Betting here--two to one on L'Etoile; Irish Roan offered and taken
freely. Slight decline in closing prices for the King; getting on French
bay rather heavily at midnight. Fancy there's a commission out against
the King. Looks suspicious." Cecil shrugged his shoulders and raised his
eyebrows a little.

"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