r in a
horse?

There is, apparently, more in horse-racing than meets the eye. I am
not addicted to remembering much about the "previous performances" of
horses, as some men are, who will tell you that _Cynic_ was third in
the Kelso Hunt Cup for last year, and that you ought to keep an eye
on him for the Ayrshire Handicap. But I have remarked that horses are
not like men; they do not always run almost equally well, though the
conditions of the race seem similar. No doubt this is owing to the
nervousness of the animal, who may be discouraged by the noise, the
smell of bad tobacco, and so forth.

I have given up Racing. That was after last year's Ascot meeting. I
was staying at a country house, some days before, and somehow I lost
my betting-book. It is really extraordinary how things do get lost.
Perhaps I left it in a railway carriage. Afterwards I tried to put
my bets, as far as I could remember them, down on a large sheet of
paper, and I think I got it very nearly right. But I left the paper
lying about in the library in a very interesting first edition of
_Plotinus_, I believe, and either the housemaid burned it, or my host
threw it into the waste-paper basket. At all events, it was lost,
and I have no head for figures, and things got mixed somehow. The
book-maker's recollection of the circumstances was not the same as
mine. But I began quite a fresh book, on imaginative principles, on
the course. I had not a good Ascot. And as Racing gives me a headache,
and I seldom meet any people on the Turf who are at all interested in
the same things as myself, I have given it up for good. They say I am
a good deal regretted by the Ring. It is always pleasant to remember
having made a favourable impression.

* * * * *

THE OPERA-GOER'S DIARY.

_Monday, May 16._--Sound the trumpets, Beat the drums! All Hail to
Sir DRURIOLANUS OPERATICUS, the most successful Knight of the Season!
A brilliant audience in a brilliant house lighted by thousands of
additional electric lights, acclaimed with rapture the awakening
of Opera. _Philemon et Baucis_ began it, a work by GOUNOD (which
is not intended for swearing) of great sweetness and light; and
this was followed by PIETRO MASCAGNI's _Cavalleria Rusticana_,
"Rustic Chivalry," which might be epigrammatically described as a
"Clod-hoppera." _Philemon et Baucis_ is charming. M. MONTARIOL was a
capital _Philemon_, and Mlle. SIGRID ARNOLDSEN as _Baucis_, a sor