" says Carew, getting as red as his own jacket, and beginning to
splutter--he always did when he got angry--"this is good enough for me,
and for most people here--"

"Oh, but nobody up here has got a palate left," says the bagman,
laughing in a very superior sort of way.

"What do you mean, sir?" shouted Carew, jumping up. "I'll not have any
d----d bagmen coming here to insult me!"

By George, if you'll believe me, Carew had a false palate, with a little
bit of sponge in the middle, and we all knew it, _except the bagman_.
There was a frightful shindy, Carew wanting to have his blood, and all
the rest of us trying to prevent a row. We succeeded somehow in the end,
I don't quite know how we managed it, as the bagman was very warlike
too; but, anyhow, when I was going to bed that night I saw them both in
the billiard room, very tight, leaning up against opposite ends of the
billiard table, and making shoves at the balls--with the wrong ends of
their cues, fortunately.

"He called me a d----d bagman," says one, nearly tumbling down with
laughing.

"Told me I'd no palate," says the other, putting his head down on the
table and giggling away there "best thing I ever heard in my life."

Every one was as good friends as possible next day at the races, and for
the whole week as well. Unfortunately for the bagman his horse didn't
pull off things in the way he expected, in fact he hadn't a look in--we
just killed him from first to last. As things went on the bagman began
to look queer and by the end of the week he stood to lose a pretty
considerable lot of money, nearly all of it to me. The way we arranged
these matters then was a general settling-up day after the races were
over; every one squared up his books and planked ready money down on the
nail, or if he hadn't got it he went and borrowed from some one else to
do it with. The bagman paid up what he owed the others, and I began to
feel a bit sorry for the fellow when he came to me that night to finish
up. He hummed and hawed a bit, and then asked if I should mind taking an
I.O.U. from him, as he was run out of the ready.

Of course I said, "All right, old man, certainly, just the same to me,"
though it's usual in such cases to put down the hard cash, but
still--fellow staying in my house, you know--sent on by this pal of mine
in the 11th--absolutely nothing else to be done.

Next morning I was up and out on parade as usual, and in the natural
course of events began