MILTON!--one of my favourite poets, and also one of Mr. ASQUITH'S, as he
said in that lecture last week. Yes, but is Mr. ASQUITH exactly lucky
just now? Perhaps not. And did not MILTON write _Paradise Lost_? True.
But, on the other hand, he wrote _Paradise Regained_. You see how
difficult tip-hunting can be!

And so it went on and I emerged from the Epsom Downs station in a
maze of indecision, in which one fact and one only shone with crystal
clearness, and that was that whatever won the race The Panther had no
better chance, even though it had been made favourite, than any other.

"Besides," as one of the two men who sat on my knees had said, "What's a
favourite anyway? Very often a horse is made a favourite by the bookies,
in conjunction with the Press, just so as everyone will back it. No, no
favourites for me. Give me a likely outsider at good odds. Look what you
have to put on The Panther to win anything."

In the result I backed--well, I am not going to tell you; but they "also
ran."

The moral of this story--if it has one--is either don't bet at all, or,
if you do bet, draw the horse from a hat at random, and, having drawn
it, stick to it. No one, as the failure of The Panther proves, can
possibly _know_ more than you.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Daphne_. "I MUSTN'T HAVE ANY CAKE TILL I DON'T ASK FOR
IT, MUST I?"]