Look, here it is, my first bet with your grandfather--and I'm only sixty now!' He smoothed the page with his hand in a manner such as I have seen a dean do with his sermon-paper in a cathedral puplit.

'Here it is, thirty-six years ago.' He read the bet aloud.

It was on the Derby, he himself having bet that the Prince of Wale's horse would win.

'Your grandfather, dear lad,' he repeated, 'but you'll find no bets of mine with your father.

He didn't inherit that strain, but your grandfather and your great-grandfather had it--sportsmen both, afraid of nothing, with big minds, great eyes for seeing, and a sense for a winner almost uncanny.