isy.'

The morning of the Handicap dawned clear and bright, the last day of
September, and Dartie who had travelled to Newmarket the night before,
arrayed himself in spotless checks and walked to an eminence to see his
half of the filly take her final canter: If she won he would be a cool
three thou. in pocket--a poor enough recompense for the sobriety and
patience of these weeks of hope, while they had been nursing her for
this race. But he had not been able to afford more. Should he 'lay it
off' at the eight to one to which she had advanced? This was his single
thought while the larks sang above him, and the grassy downs smelled
sweet, and the pretty filly passed, tossing her head and glowing like
satin.

After all, if he lost it would not be he who paid, and to 'lay it off'
would reduce his winnings to some fifteen hundred--hardly enough to
purchase a dancer out and out. Even more potent was the itch in the
blood of all the Darties for a real flutter. And turning to George he
said: "She's a clipper. She'll win hands down; I shall go the whole
hog." George, who had laid off every penny, and a few besides, and stood
to win, however it came out, grinned down on him from his bulky
height, with the words: "So ho, my wild one!" for after a chequered
apprenticeship weathered with the money of a deeply complaining Roger,
his Forsyte blood was beginning to stand him in good stead in the
profession of owner.

There are moments of disillusionment in the lives of men from which the
sensitive recorder shrinks. Suffice it to say that the good thing fell
down. Sleeve-links finished in the ruck. Dartie's shirt was lost.

Between the passing of these things and the day when Soames turned his
face towards Green Street, what had not happened!

When a man with the constitution of Montague Dartie has exercised
self-control for months from religious motives, and remains unrewarded,
he does not curse God and die, he curses God and lives, to the distress
of his family.

Winifred--a plucky woman, if a little too fashionable--who had borne
the brunt of him for exactly twenty-one years, had never really believed
that he would do what he now did. Like so many wives, she thought she
knew the worst, but she had not yet known him in his forty-fifth year,
when he, like other men, felt that it was now or never. Paying on
the 2nd of October a visit of inspection to her jewel case, she was
horrified to observe that her woman's crown and glory w