tipster, and some rotten horses."

"You are most refreshingly green," Ward replied, and he screwed the
telegrams together and threw them into the fire.

"What are you going to do?" I inquired.

"That's just it, I can't make up my mind. Tom Webb has sent me twelve
stiff 'uns running, and if The Philosopher won and I wasn't on it I
should swear for a month."

"Then," I said wisely, "I think you had better back The Philosopher;
you ought to think a little of your friends."

The only answer I received to my suggestion was that of all the fools
in Oxford I was the most sublime, so I told him that if he backed
either of these horses he would be proving that, at any rate, I was not
absolutely the biggest fool he knew. But he had begun to read racing
guides and calendars, and every now and then made notes upon a piece of
paper, so he treated my retort with contempt.

"I believe," he said, with a pencil between his teeth, "that Dainty
Dick can give The Philosopher about eleven pounds, and he has only to
give him four, so I shall back The Philosopher."

"That doesn't seem very good reasoning," I ventured to remark.

"My opinion's always wrong," he explained, "but I have a thundering
good mind to back both of 'em."

"It seems the quickest way of losing your money," I said.

"Don't be such a confounded ass. I know about some of these stables, a
man is a fool if you like who bets and doesn't know." He shut up his
betting-book with a bang, and I told him the only tale I knew about
racing.

"I have a cousin," I began, "who owned racehorses and all the rest of
it. He lost every penny he had, and a lot more besides. He knew, as
you call it." I did not feel that my tale, though it had the merit of
being true, was a good one.

"It is no use for you to sit there and conjure up tragedies," Ward
replied. "I can't help gambling, it is in my blood; my father is about
the biggest speculator in England. If you want a good tip, buy
Susquehambo Consolidated Rubies."

I was not inclined to buy anything except a fox-terrier pup, and I told
Ward that he would come a most howling cropper if he did not look out.
But I have never yet happened to find the man who was inclined to take
my warnings seriously, and Jack Ward, at any rate, was so naturally
optimistic, that I might have known that he would take no notice
whatever of my advice.

"I shall back both Dainty Dick and The Philosopher," he said, when I
had finished; "come d