their bets in the book, for
Thwaite's was then what it is now, the highest and best sporting club in
the world."

Kitty Tynan's face had a curious look, for there was a club in Askatoon,
and it was said that all the "sports" assembled there. She had no idea
what Thwaite's Club in St. James's Street would look like; but that did
not matter. She supposed it must be as big as the Askatoon Court House
at least.

"Bets--bets--bets by men whose names were in every history, and the
names of their sons and grandsons and great-grandsons; and all betting
on the oddest things as well as the most natural things in the world.
Some of the bets made were as mad as the bets I made myself. Oh!
ridiculous, some of them were; and then again bets on things that
stirred the world to the centre, from the loss of America to the
beheading of Louis XVI.

"It was strange enough to see the half-dozen lines of a bet by a marquis
whose great-grandson bet on the Franco-German War; that the Government
which imposed the tea-tax in America would be out of power within six
months; or that the French Canadians would join the colonists in what is
now the United States if they revolted. This would be cheek-by-jowl with
a bet that an heir would be born to one new-married pair before another
pair. The very last bet made on the day I opened the book was that Queen
Victoria would make Lord Salisbury a duke, that a certain gentleman
known as S. S. could find his own door in St. James's Square, blindfold,
from the club, and that Corsair would win the Derby.

"For two long hours I sat forgetful of everything around me, while I
read that record--to me the most interesting the world could show. Every
line was part of the history of the country, a part of the history of
many lives, and it was all part of the ritual of the temple of the great
god Chance. I was fascinated, lost in a land of wonders. Men came and
went, but silently. At last there entered a gentleman whose picture I
had so often seen in the papers--a man as well known in the sporting
world as was Chamberlain in the political world. He was dressed
spectacularly, but his face oozed good-nature, though his eyes were like
bright bits of coal. He bred horses, he raced this, he backed that, he
laid against the other; he was one of the greatest plungers, one of the
biggest figures on the turf. He had been a kind of god to me--a god in
a grey frock-coat, with a grey top-hat and field-glasses slung over
hi