privately he betted on commission. His secret service to-day
was to bet against his noble employer's own horse, and so he
at once sung out, "Twenty to one against Man-trap."

A young gentleman just launched into the world, and who, proud
of his ancient and spreading acres, was now making his first
book, seeing Man-trap marked eighteen to one on the cards,
jumped eagerly at this bargain, while Lord Fitzheron and Mr
Berners who were at hand and who in their days had found their
names in the book of the carcase butcher, and grown wise by
it, interchanged a smile.

"Mr Egremont will not take," said Hump Chippendale to the peer
in the white great coat.

"You must have been too eager," said his noble friend.

The ring is up; the last odds declared; all gallop away to the
Warren. A few minutes, only a few minutes, and the event that
for twelve months has been the pivot of so much calculation,
of such subtile combinations, of such deep conspiracies, round
which the thought and passion of the sporting world have hung
like eagles, will be recorded in the fleeting tablets of the
past. But what minutes! Count them by sensation and not by
calendars, and each moment is a day and the race a life.
Hogarth in a coarse and yet animated sketch has painted
"Before" and "After." A creative spirit of a higher vein
might develope the simplicity of the idea with sublimer
accessories. Pompeius before Pharsalia, Harold before
Hastings, Napoleon before Waterloo, might afford some striking