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!"