one by one through a narrow aperture at the bottom, thus avoiding all
suspicion of overcrowding in giving out the tickets. He explained his
plan of campaign to his party and took up his post at the foot of the V.

Scarcely had he done so when the A.P. appeared upon the scene. He had
brought with him a few friends--a couple of subs, two or three senior
snotties and the Captain's secretary, a brace of stewards with the
luncheon baskets, and the cutter's crew, who carried between them two
large trellis-work screens which the carpenter had knocked up for him.

He passed the time of day with the gunner, marched fifty yards further
down towards the starting-point and had his screens deposited in the
middle of the road, in such a way that several could enter one end of
the enclosure they formed, but only one at a time could go out at the
other; this, he explained, would enable the men to pass the winning-post
in single file. He then lit a cigarette and took his stand at the narrow
end, producing from his pocket seven hundred and fifty neat red tickets
(numbered from one to seven hundred and fifty) which the chief writer
had made out for him the night before.

At 8.45 Number One arrived. To help him he had brought a couple of
watch-keepers, a surgeon, three engineers, a naval instructor and the
captain of Marines. He only paused to borrow one side of the gunner's V
and all but forty of the A.P.'s tickets, and passed on down the road.
When he had reached a suitable point about a hundred yards south of the
A.P. he had the purloined rope stretched slantwise, in such a way that
the only means of passing it was a little passage a yard wide between
the rope and the ditch on the right of the road. A little nearer still
to the starting-point he had a large placard erected with the words
"Keep to the Right" painted on it.