His next move was made in the disguise of "Henry Buckstone, late valet to a sporting nobleman, who, being in possession of several important racing secrets, will send the winners of Two Thousand Guineas and Chester Cup to a select number of gentlemen on receiving a remittance of five shillings." Communications were to be addressed to a stationer's shop in Holborn, and for a time letters came in abundance, as many on some days as fifteen. Once again, as may be said, the ex-publican "struck ile," and a flow of fortune resulted which, happily for Wingrave, was kept up by the consecutive selection of some six or eight good winners. But in time this tipster, like others before and after him, dropped out of notice, although it is certain that he flourished, like the proverbial green bay-tree, for several years. During the period which Wingrave carried on business, tipsters had much in their favour, the big events of the season being betted upon for months before the day set for their decision. Fifty years ago, for instance, quotations on the Chester Cup were numerous in the December of the year previous to its being run. Such arrangements, of course, helped the tipsters of the outer school, as people were early in the field to back their fancies or the selections of the adventurers who sent prophecies. For these men the fact of being occasionally successful in naming the winner of a great race, at what was thought a "long price," was just so much capital gained. Two or three successful tips enabled a man to play "the game" to a remunerative tune for at east six months; every time he advertised he obtained numerous replies on the strength of his previous successes. Before the advent of the "retired club steward" there was a person at work whose success as a tipster was the subject of much gossip among needy bettors; this was the lady tipster already referred to. Yes, a veritable woman, and clever at the work! I first heard about her in "Jessop's," a night house in Catherine Street, among the frequenters of which her tips seemed to have made an impression. The little badly-printed circular containing her prophecies was signed "A. M. Weather." The name of this female foreteller of turf events was said to be Adelaide Merryweather; she was, so I was told by some of the "knowing ones" who frequented "Jessop's," the widow of an actor who had been engaged for a time in one of the then transpontine theatres as a delineator of small parts. The woman's own name was Weather, her husband's name being Merry, and the _nom de plume_ she adopted as a prophetess was a combination of the two; but she traded in tips under other names as well, one of them being John Screwman. Her house, or at least one of the places to which her letters were sent, was in Chapel Street, Soho Square, and, as the postman of the period would have been able to testify, she carried on a thriving business.