f and the man who made it.

_THIS IS THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT of me, Jonathan Roach, of 75
Princes Gardens, in the County of London, Esquire. I give, devise, and
bequeath all my real and personal estate of every description unto my
nephew Anthony Lyveden absolutely, provided that and so soon as my said
nephew shall receive the honour of Knighthood or some higher
dignity...._

Anthony received the news while the guns, which he was temporarily
commanding, were hammering at the gates of Gaza. He read the letter
carefully twice. Then he stuffed it into a cross-pocket and
straightway burst into song. That the air he selected was a music-hall
ditty was typical of the man.

Curiously enough, it was the same number that he was whistling under
his breath as he strode into Hyde Park this June afternoon.

Patch, who had never been out of London, thought the world of the
Parks. After the barren pavements, for him the great greenswards made
up a Land of Promise more than fulfilled. The magic carpet of the
grass, stuffed with a million scents, was his Elysium. A bookworm made
free of the Bodleian could not have been more exultant. The many
trees, too, were more accessible, and there were other dogs to frolic
with, and traffic, apparently, was not allowed.

When he had walked well into the Park, Lyveden made for a solitary
chair and sat himself down in the sun. For a while he remained wrapped
in meditation, abstractedly watching the terrier stray to and fro,
nosing the adjacent turf with the assiduity of a fond connoisseur.

For nine long months the ex-officer had sought employment, indoor or
outdoor, congenial or uncongenial. The quest was vain. Once he had
broached the matter haltingly to an influential acquaintance. The
latter's reception of his distress had been so startlingly obnoxious
that he would have died rather than repeat the venture. Then Smith of
Dale's, Old Bond Street--Smith, who had cut his hair since he was a
boy, and was his fast friend--had told him of Blue Moon.

There is more racing chatter to be heard at the great hairdressers'
than almost anywhere else outside a race-course. Some of it is worth
hearing, most of it is valueless. The difficulty, as elsewhere, is to
sift the wheat from the chaff.

According to Smith, Blue Moon was being kept extremely quiet.
Certainly the horse was little mentioned. Lyveden had never heard his
name. And thirty-three to one was a long price....

Ly