st what they'll never do. No! not if it was ever so. You
may pitch into 'em like Old Harry, and those d----d fine gentlemen will
just look as if they liked it. You might strike 'em dead at your feet,
and it's my belief, while they was cold as stone they'd manage to look
not beaten yet. It's a fleecing of one--a fleecing of one!" he growled
afresh; draining down a great draught of brandy-heated Roussillon to
drown the impatient conviction which possessed him that, let him triumph
as he would, there would ever remain, in that fine intangible sense
which his coarse nature could feel, though he could not have further
defined it, a superiority in his adversary he could not conquer; a
difference between him and his prey he could not bridge over.

The Jew laughed a little.

"Vot a child you are, you Big Ben! Vot matter how he look, so long as
you have de success and pocket de monish?"

Big Ben gave a long growl, like a mastiff tearing to reach a bone just
held above him.

"Hang the blunt! The yellows ain't a quarter worth to me what it 'ud be
to see him just look as if he knew he was knocked over. Besides, laying
again' him by that ere commission's piled up hatsful of the ready, to
be sure; I don't say it ain't; but there's two thou' knocked off for
Willon, and the fool don't deserve a tizzy of it. He went and put the
paint on so thick that, if the Club don't have a flare-up about the
whole thing----"

"Let dem!" said the Jew serenely. "Dey can do vot dey like; dey von't
get to de bottom of de vell. Dat Villon is sharp; he vill know how to
keep his tongue still; dey can prove nothing; dey may give de sack to a
stable-boy, or dey may think themselves mighty bright in seeing a mare's
nest, but dey vill never come to us."

The welsher gave a loud, hoarse guffaw of relish and enjoyment.

"No! We know the ins and outs of Turf Law a trifle too well to be caught
napping. A neater thing weren't ever done, if it hadn't been that the
paint was put a trifle too thick. The 'oss should have just run ill, and
not knocked over, clean out o' time like that. However, there ain't no
odds a-crying over spilt milk. If the Club do come a inquiry, we'll show
'em a few tricks that'll puzzle 'em. But it's my belief they'll let it
off on the quiet; there ain't a bit of evidence to show the 'oss was
doctored, and the way he went stood quite as well for having been
knocked off his feed and off his legs by the woyage and sich like. And
now you go