"Favourite and Royal Scot," says the Oracle.
"Put a pound on Bendemeer," says the tipster. "It's a certainty.
Meet me here if it comes off, and I'll tell you something for the next race. Don't miss it now. Get on quick!"
The Oracle is humble enough before the hanger-on of the turf.
A bookmaker roars "10 to 1 Bendemeer;" he suddenly fishes out a sovereign of his own -- and he hasn't money to spare, for all his knowingness -- and puts it on Bendemeer. His friends' money he puts on the favourite and Royal Scot as arranged. Then they all go round to watch the race.
The horses are at the post; a distant cluster of crowded animals with little dots of colour on their backs. Green, blue, yellow, purple, French grey, and old gold, they change about in a bewildering manner, and though the Oracle has a cheap pair of glasses, he can't make out where Bendemeer has got to. Royal Scot and the favourite he has lost interest in, and secretly hopes that they will be left at the post or break their necks; but he does not confide his sentiment to his companions.
They're off! The long line of colours across the track becomes a shapeless clump and then draws out into a long string.
"What's that in front?" yells someone at the rails.
"Oh, that thing of Hart's," says someone else. But the Oracle hears them not; he is looking in the mass of colour for a purple cap and grey jacket, with black arm bands.
He cannot see it anywhere, and the confused and confusing mass swings round the turn into the straight.
Then there is a babel of voices, and suddenly a shout of "Bendemeer!
Bendemeer!" and the Oracle, without knowing which is Bendemeer, takes up the cry feverishly. "Bendemeer! Bendemeer!" he yells, waggling his glasses about, trying to see where the animal is.
"Where's Royal Scot, Charley? Where's Royal Scot?" screams one of his friends, in agony. "'Ow's he doin'?"
"No 'ope!" says the Oracle, with fiendish glee. "Bendemeer! Bendemeer!"
The horses are at the Leger stand now, whips are out, and three horses seem to be nearly abreast; in fact, to the Oracle there seem to be a dozen nearly abreast. Then a big chestnut sticks his head in front of the others, and a small man at the Oracle's side emits a deafening series of yells right by the Oracle's ear:
"Go on, Jimmy! Rub it into him! Belt him! It's a cake-walk!
A cake-walk! The big chestnut, in a dogged sort of way, seems to stick his body clear of his opponents, and passes the post a winner by a length. The Oracle doesn't know what has won, but fumbles with his book. The number on the saddle-cloth catches his eye -- No. 7; he looks hurriedly down the page. No. 7 -- Royal Scot. Second is No. 24
-- Bendemeer. Favourite nowhere.
Hardly has he realised it, before his friends are cheering and clapping him on the back. "By George, Charley, it takes you to pick 'em."
"Come and 'ave a wet!" "You 'ad a quid in, didn't you, Charley?"
The Oracle feels very sick at having missed the winner, but he dies game.
"Yes, rather; I had a quid on," he says. "And" (here he nerves himself to smile) "I had a saver on the second, too."
His comrades gasp with astonishment. "D'you hear that, eh? Charley backed first and second. That's pickin' 'em if you like." They have a wet, and pour fulsome adulation on the Oracle when he collects their money.
After the Oracle has collected the winnings for his friends he meets the Whisperer again.
"It didn't win?" he says to the Whisperer in inquiring tones.
"Didn't win," says the Whisperer, who has determined to brazen the matter out. "How could he win? Did you see the way he was ridden?
That horse was stiffened just after I seen you, and he never tried a yard.
Did you see the way he was pulled and hauled about at the turn?
It'd make a man sick. What was the stipendiary stewards doing, I wonder?"
This fills the Oracle with a new idea. All that he remembers of the race at the turn was a jumble of colours, a kaleidoscope of horses and of riders hanging on to the horses' necks. But it wouldn't do to admit that he didn't see everything, and didn't know everything; so he plunges in boldly.
"O' course I saw it," he says. "And a blind man could see it.
They ought to rub him out."
"Course they ought," says the Whisperer. "But, look here, put two quid on Tell-tale; you'll get it all back!"
The Oracle does put on "two quid", and doesn't get it all back.
Neither does he see any more of this race than he did of the last one -- in fact, he cheers wildly when the wrong horse is coming in.
But when the public begin to hoot he hoots as loudly as anybody -- louder if anything; and all the way home in the tram he lays down the law about stiff running, and wants to know what the stipendiaries are doing.
If you go into any barber's shop, you can hear him at it, and he flourishes in suburban railway carriages; but he has a tremendous local reputation, having picked first and second in the handicap, and it would be a bold man who would venture to question the Oracle's knowledge of racing and of all matters relating to it.
