Scotch Plate to Disaster by a neck. As the racing man allows his
memory to dwell on the achievements of Oily Hair his confidence rises.
"I see nothing to beat him," he says to himself. He has just decided
to put "a fiver" on him when he meets an acquaintance, who suggests a
drink. As they drink, the talk turns on horses. "What are you backing
in the big race to-morrow?" "Have you heard anything?" "I heard Oily
Hair." "I think not. I'll tell you why. Tommy Fitzgibbon's youngest
sister is at school with two sisters of Willie Soames, who's going to
ride Peace on Earth to-morrow, and one of them told her that Willie
had written to her to put every halfpenny she has on Peace on Earth."
"I'm sick, sore and tired of backing Peace on Earth. He's a
cantankerous beast that seems to take a positive pleasure in losing
races." "Well, remember what I told you...."

On arriving home our sportsman goes to his shelves and takes down the
last annual volume of _M'Call's Racing Chronicle and Pocket Turf
Calendar_, and looks up Peace on Earth in the index. He turns up the
record of one race after another, and finds that the horse has a
better past than he had remembered. He cannot make up his mind what to
do. He looks over several weekly papers to see if any of them can
throw light on his difficulties. Each of them names a different winner
for the big race. When he puts on his pyjamas that night, all he knows
is that he has decided to decide nothing till the next day.

Next day he once more reads the names of the horses entered for the
various races, and glances down the list of winners selected by the
racing prophet in the morning paper. Having breakfasted late, he finds
he has only about an hour to waste before catching a train for the
races, and he resolves to pay a call at the "Bird of Paradise," where
a friend of his who has an unusual gift for picking up information is