The Fat Man It was notorious that the Three J's (or, to be more exact, Ikey) not only had their scouts out all over the world, seeking what Monkey Brand called "black diamonds," but that they had their eyes everywhere in the Old Country, watching enemy stables. And Joses was the Eye that watched all the stables on the South Downs from Beachy Head to the Rother--and Putnam's most of all. When tackled further on the subject by Monkey Brand, the tout admitted the fact without demur and even with pride. "Yes," he swaggered. "I'm a commission agent. A very honourable profession, too." "Not ha hartist at all?" queried Monkey, chewing his quid. Joses laughed and spread himself, throwing back his gingery curls. "I was at Oxford," he said, "and I've all the tastes of a gentleman. Art and poetry are my specialties--when my professional duties allow me time." The little dark jockey turned in his lips, eyeing the other with bland interest. "'Ark to him!" he said. "Don't he talk. Learned the patter at Oxford College, I expect." He turned on his lame leg. "Anyway, we know now where we are, Mr. Moses Joses." * * * * * After the incident in the Post Office Joses dropped his easel and went about with field-glasses unashamed. To give him his due, there were few better watchers in the trade. A man of education and great natural ability, he was quite unscrupulous as to how he achieved his end. As Chukkers said of him: "He gets there. Never mind how." Joses indeed was out early and late, and he was horribly alert. Nobody knew when and where his fat body and brown face might not be turning up. "Crawls around like a great red slug," said Old Mat; and it was seldom a horse did a big gallop but the fat man was there to see. The morning Boy went for her first dip he was at the lighthouse on the cliff above the Gap. Whether he had slept there, or risen with the dawn, it was hard to say. The lighthouse marked the highest point in the neighbourhood, and was therefore useful for the watcher's purpose. From there with his glasses he could sweep The Mare's Back and The Giant's Shoulder and neighbouring ridges on which the horses of the stables in the district galloped. The Paris Meeting was the next big event; and Ikey Aaronsohnn's horse Jackaroo--the waler Chukkers had just brought back with him from the other side--was to make his first appearance at it. There was only one English horse of which the Dewhurst stable had not the measure, and that was the Putnam mare Make-Way-There. Jaggers, in that curt, sub-acid way of his, had instructed Joses to report on her form, and "to make no mistake about it." The tout had touched his hat and answered: "Very good, sir." Now it was well known that a man had to be up very early in every sense if he wanted to keep an eye on a Putnam horse. Mat Woodburn might be old, but he was by no means sleepy; and Joses could not afford to blunder.