d him.

"Wait," she said gently.

He dropped his hands.

"I shall go back to bed now," she continued. "You'd better turn in,
too--now you've caught your rat."

"I've cut off his tail anyway," laughed the young man, showing the
cloak.

Swathed in her light wrapper, the little creature shuffled swiftly down
the gangway behind the line of sleeping horses, her pumps, too big for
her bare feet, clacking on the pavement.

He followed her heavily, his eyes brimming laughter and delight.

A few minutes later Silver joined Monkey Brand in the loose-box.

"Good little try-on, sir," said the jockey busily. "Funny smelling stuff
though."

Removing a rug, he produced a bucket hidden beneath and held it to the
other's nose.

"Chuck it down the drain," said the young man.

"'Alf a mo, sir," protested Monkey Brand. "Let me fill me bottle first."

He looked up at the young man with extraordinary cunning.

"Ever know'd a monkey get squiffy?" he asked confidentially. "No. Nor me
neever."

CHAPTER XLIV

Monkey Brand Gets the Sack

Joses was lying on his bed in the gray of dawn, looking curiously livid,
when somebody whistled beneath his window.

He rose and looked out.

Monkey was standing morosely in the garden underneath.

The fat man beckoned him in, and returned to his bed.

The little jockey entered.

He was dark, sullen, dangerous.

"Well?" said the tout, lying in disarray upon the bed.

"I thought you'd done a get-away," said Monkey surlily.

"I've been queer," answered the other. "Has the stuff worked?"

"Worked!" cried the jockey, with smothered fury. "It's worked _my_ trick
all right. Never touched the 'orse. Run through him like so much water.
The chemist who made up that stuff doped you and not the 'orse--and done
me."

"What they done to you?"

"Took the cash off me, and give me the ---- boot instead."

The tout considered.

"He's fit, is he?"

"Fit?" snorted the little man. "He's throwin' back-somersaults in his
box. That's all."

"When do they box him for Liverpool?"

"Twelve-fifteen train."

Joses gathered himself with difficulty.

"See here, Brand," he said. "Are you straight?"

"Straight!" shouted Monkey. "Would I ha' sold the guv'nor I serve for
twenty year if I wasn't straight."

The fat man pulled on his boots.

"Never say die till you're dead," he said. "We must go north, too.
There's the last card and we must play it."

* * * *