I shouldn't have liked waiting; so I suppose it's as well as it is." There may perhaps have been other reasons why Archie Clavering's regrets that he did not take holy orders were needless.

He had never succeeded in learning anything that any master had ever attempted to teach him, although he had shown considerable aptitude in picking up acquirements for which no regular masters are appointed.

He knew the fathers and mothers--sires and dams I ought perhaps to say--and grandfathers and grandmothers, and so back for some generations, of all the horses of note living in his day.

He knew also the circumstances of all races--what horses would run at them, and at what ages, what were the stakes, the periods of running, and the special interests of each affair.

But not, on that account, should it be thought that the turf had been profitable to him.