But really I was
running to back a superstition--my belief in Foe, who knew nothing
about horse-racing and cared less.

Well, the race was run that year in a thunderstorm--a drencher; and
if Foe was right, I guess that finished Gouvernant, who never looked
like a winner. St. Amant romped home, with John o' Gaunt second, in
the place he could be trusted for. Thanks to Foe I had saved myself
more than a pony in three strenuous minutes, and he pocketed his few
sovereigns and smiled.

That was also the day--June 1st, 1904--"Glorious First of June" as
Jimmy Collingwood called it--that Foe first made Jimmy's
acquaintance. Young Collingwood was a neighbour of mine, down in the
country; an artless, irresponsible, engaging youth, of powerful build
and as pretty an oarsman and as neat a waterman as you could watch.
Eton and B.N.C. Oxford were his nursing mothers. His friends
(including the dons) at this latter house of learning knew him as the
Malefactor; it being a tradition that he poisoned an aunt or a
grandparent annually, towards the close of May. He was attending the
obsequies of one that afternoon on the edge of the hill, in a hansom,
with a plate of _foie gras_ on his knees and a bottle of champagne
between his ankles. His cabby reclined on the turf with a bottle of
Bass and the remains of a pigeon pie. His horse had its head in a
nose-bag.

"Hallo, Jimmy!" I hailed, pausing before the pastoral scene.
"Funeral bake-meats?"

"Hallo!" Jimmy answered, and shook his head very solemnly.
"Sister-in-law this time. It had to be."

"Sister-in-law! Why you haven't one!"

"Course not," said Jimmy. "That's the whole trouble. Ain't I
breaking it to you gently? . . . Case of _angina pectoris_, if you
know what that means. It sounds like a pick-me-up--'try Angostura
bitters to keep up your Pecker.' But it isn't. Angina--short 'i'; I
know because I tried it on the Dean with a long one and he corrected
me. He said that angina might be forgiven, for once, in a young man
bereaved and labouring under strong emotion, but that if I
apprehended its running in the family I had better get the quantity
right. He also remarked rather pointedly that he hoped his memory
was at fault and that my poor brother hadn't really lost his deceased
wife's sister."

"Do you know where bad boys go?" I asked him.

"Silly question," said Jimmy, with his mouth full of _foie gras_.
"Why, to the Derby, of course. Have something to eat."