Like all the inhabitants of Great Britain, her thoughts were entirely engrossed with the approaching Derby Race, and she very innocently narrated how it was matter of common knowledge that a notorious grandame, to wit the fashionable Duchess of Dickinson, had backed heavily that _Milky Way_ was to fail like the flash of a pan. Whereupon Mr Bhosh, recollecting that he had actually entrusted his invaluable mare with her concomitant jockey to the mercy of this self-same Duchess, was harrowed with sudden misgivings. By shrewd cross-questions he soon eliminated that Mr McAlpine was a pal of the Duchess, which she had herself admitted at the Victoria terminus, and thus by dint of penetrating instinct, Mr Bhosh easily unravelled the tangled labyrinth of a hideous conspiracy, which caused him to beat his head vehemently against the walls of his cell at the thought of his utter impotentiality. Like all feminines who were privileged to make his acquaintance, Miss Caroline was transfixed with passionate adoration for Bindabun, whom she regarded as a gallant and illused innocent, and resolved to assist him to cut his lucky. To this end she furnished him with a file and a silken ladder of her own knitting--but unfortunately Mr Bhosh, having never before undergone incarceration, was a total neophyte in effecting his escape by such dangerous and antiquated procedures, which he firmly declined to employ, urging her to sneak the paternal keybunch and let him out at daybreak by some back entrance. And, not to crack the wind of this poor story while rendering it as short as possible, she yielded to his entreaties and contrived to restore him to the priceless boon of liberty the next morning at about 5 A.M. Oh, the unparalleled raptures of finding himself once more free as a bird! It was the dawn of the Derby Day, and Mr Bhosh precipitated himself to his dwelling, intending to array himself in all his best and go down to Epsom, where he was in hopes of encountering his horse. Heyday! What was his chagrin to see his jockey, Cadwallader Perkin, approach with streaming eyes, fling himself at his master's feet and implore him to be merciful! "How comes it, Cadwallader," sternly inquired Mr Bhosh, "that you are not on the heath of Epsom instead of wallowing like this on my shoes?" "I do not know," was the whimpered response. "Then pray where is my Derby favourite, _Milky Way_?" demanded Bindabun. "I cannot tell," wailed out the lachrymose juvenile. Then, after prolonged pressure, he confessed that the Duchess had met him at the station portals, and, on the plea that there was abundance of spare time to book the mare, easily persuaded him to accompany her to the buffet of Refreshment-room. There she plied him with a stimulant which jockeys are proverbially unable to resist, viz., brandy-cherries, in such profusion that he promptly became catalyptic in a corner.