"My dear Seraph, not for worlds! You were quite right not to have a
thorn taken down. Why, that's where I shall thrash Bay Regent," said
Bertie serenely, as if the winning of the stakes had been forecast in
his horoscope.

The Seraph whistled, stroking his mustaches. "Between ourselves, Cecil,
that fellow is going up no end. The Talent fancy him so--"

"Let them," said Cecil placidly, with a great cheroot in his mouth,
lounging into the center of the Ring to hear how the betting went on his
own mount; perfectly regardless that he would keep them waiting at the
weights while he dressed. Everybody there knew him by name and sight;
and eager glances followed the tall form of the Guards' champion as he
moved through the press, in a loose brown sealskin coat, with a little
strip of scarlet ribbon round his throat, nodding to this peer, taking
evens with that, exchanging a whisper with a Duke, and squaring his
book with a Jew. Murmurs followed about him as if he were the horse
himself--"looks in racing form"--"looks used up to me"--"too little
hands surely to hold in long in a spin"--"too much length in the limbs
for a light weight; bone's always awfully heavy"--"dark under the eye,
been going too fast for training"--"a swell all over, but rides no end,"
with other innumerable contradictory phrases, according as the speaker
was "on" him or against him, buzzed about him from the riff-raff of the
Ring, in no way disturbing his serene equanimity.

One man, a big fellow, "'ossy" all over, with the genuine sporting
cut-away coat, and a superabundance of showy necktie and bad jewelry,
eyed him curiously, and slightly turned so that his back was toward
Bertie, as the latter was entering a bet with another Guardsman well
known on the turf, and he himself was taking long odds with little Berk