ever takes the trouble to
show any deference towards his admirers; their amorous glances and
giggling are inevitable tributes to his fascinations, and he takes it
all as a matter of course. Like Blackey and the Ramper, Jerry never does
any work, and he is supposed to have private means. His speech is quite
correct, and even elegant, and although he does not converse on exalted
topics, he is a singularly pleasant companion in his way. Most of his
talk is about horse-racing, and he never reads anything but the sporting
papers. In that taste he resembles most of those who go to The Chequers.
The wrangling, the cursing, the whispered confidences that make up the
nightly volume of noise nearly all have reference to racing subjects.
The raggedest wretch at the bar puts on horsey airs when any great race
is to be decided; he may not know a horse from a mule, but he invariably
volunteers his opinion, and if he can raise a shilling he backs his
fancy. Polite gentlemen in Parliament and elsewhere do not appear to
know that there are something like one million British adults whose
chief interest in life (apart from their necessary daily work) is
centred on racing. I think I know almost every town in England, and I
never yet in all my wanderings settled at an inn without finding that
betting of some sort or other formed the main subject of conversation.
Hundreds of times--literally hundreds--I have known whole evenings
devoted to discussing the odds. The gamblers were usually men who did
not care to see horses gallop; they chatted about names, and that
satisfied them. A clerk, a mechanic, a tradesman, a traveller, a
publican asks his friend what he has done over such and such a race,
just as he asks after the friend's health. It is taken for granted that
everybody bets, and really intelligent fellows will stare at you in
astonishment if you say that you are not interested in the result of a
race. If I chose to make a book--only dealing in small sums--I could
contrive to win a fair amount every week by merely "betting to figures."
The bookmaker does not need to visit a racecourse; he is required to
work out a sort of algebraical problem on each race, and, by exercising
a little shrewdness, he may leave himself a small balance on every
event. Small sums in silver are always forthcoming to almost any
extent, and a clever man who has no more than L100 capital to start with
may pitch his tent almost anywhere, and make sure of getting plen