urring pleasantly, but Ferdinand was awake,
meditatively gnawing through the wood-work of his stall. With the
assistance of the line-guard we saddled and bridled him; but at the
stable door he dug his toes in. It was long past his racing hours, he
gave us to understand, and his union wouldn't permit it. He backed
all round the standings, treading on recumbent horses, tripping
over bails, knocking uprights flat and bringing acres of tin roofing
clattering down upon our heads, Isabella encouraging him with ringing
fanfares of applause.

At length we roused out the grooms and practically carried him to the
starting-point.

"You've been the devil of a time," William grumbled. "Cazenove's been
waiting for twenty minutes. See that light over there? That's where
MacTavish is. He's the winning-post. Keep straight down the mud-track
towards it and you'll be all right. Don't swing sideways or you'll get
bunkered. Form line. Come up the mule. Back, Cazenove, back! Steady.
Go!"

The rivals clapped heels to their steeds and were swallowed up in
the night. I looked at my watch, the hands pointed to 10.30 exactly.
William and I lit cigarettes and waited. At 10.42 MacTavish walked
into us, his lamp had given out and he wanted a new battery.

"Who won?" we inquired.

"Won?" he asked. "They haven't started yet, have they?"

"Left here about ten minutes ago," said William. "Do you mean to say
you've seen nothing of them?"

At that moment two loud voices, accompanied by the splash of liquid
and the crash of tin, struck our ears from different points of the
compass.

"Sounds to me as if somebody had found a watery grave over to the
left," said the Babe.

"Sounds to me as if somebody had returned to stables over to the
right," said I.

We trotted away to investigate. 'Twas as I thought; Ferdinand had
homed to his Isabella and was backing round the standings once more,
trailing the infuriated Albert Edward after him, sheets of corrugated
iron falling about them like leaves in Vallombrosa.

"Bolted straight in here and scraped me off against the roof," panted
the latter. "Suppose the confounded apple-fancier won ages ago, didn't
he?"

"He's upside down in the Tuning Fork trench system at the present
moment," said I. "The Babe and the grooms are digging him out. If you
hurry up you'll win yet."

We roused out the guard, bore the reluctant Ferdinand back to the
course and by eleven o'clock had restarted him. At 11.10 William