Vivie gathered he was Mr .-- -- well, perhaps I had better not give his name,[1] even in a disguised form.

He had had a chequered career in South America--Mexico oil, Peruvian rubber, Buenos Aires railways, and a corner in Argentine beef--but had become exceedingly rich, a fortune perhaps of twenty millions.

He had given five times more than any other aspirant in benefactions to charities and to the party chest of the dominant Party, but the authorities dared not reward him with a baronetcy because of the stories of his early life which had to be fought out in libel cases with Baxendale Strangeways and others.

But he had won through these libel cases, and now devoted his vast wealth to improving our breed of horses by racing at Newmarket, Epsom, Doncaster, Gatwick, Sandown and Brighton.

Racing had, in fact, become to him what Auction Bridge was to the Society gamblers of those days, only instead of losing and winning tens and hundreds of pounds, his fluctuations in gains and losses were in thousands, generally with a summing up on the right side of the annual account.
But whether on the Turf, at the billiard table, or in the stock market he was or had become a bad loser.