"No," he said, "the sight of gold creates a panic, and an owner does not dare back his horse personally, unless he's prepared to lay odds on what very often is not an even money chance. The ring think the business is inspired, you know," he laughed, "and begin to pinch the price at once. However, as I don't bet, it doesn't affect me, though I like my friends to help themselves whenever I run anything." He turned to Chris Hannen, who was attentively studying a big bay horse with the eye of a connoisseur. "You don't often come trotting, do you?" he asked. The two men had known each other for years, but the fact that they both admired Gay Lawless had not strengthened their friendship very considerably. Still both were sportsmen, and, appreciated each other's talents in their respective branches with a genuineness not met with outside sporting circles. "No," Chris replied, glancing at Gay from the corner of a twinkling eye, "in fact, this is my first appearance on a track." "And your last, I should imagine. You don't look supremely happy," and Mackrell laughed. "That's a poor compliment to me, Mr. Mackrell," Gay said mischievously; "you forget Mr. Hannen is on escort duty. It's quite by chance he is here, but, as you know, I'm stopping at Flytton for a few days, and Mr. Hannen walked over from Epsom--'wasting' he calls it." She looked reproachfully at Chris. "There's one advantage about trotting, anyhow--you haven't to be perpetually worrying about your weight, or live on lemons, and tea, and gin!" She made a little face. "You must carry 10 stones 10 lbs. in a sulky, mustn't you--that's the minimum?" "Yes, quite right," Mackrell assented, "that enables most men to drive themselves, though a lot employ professionals. I can't see any fun in the game, unless one drives one's own horses. Let's go back, and watch the next heat. It's a handicap, you know, one for what the horse owners call "pigs," he explained. Then his face grew serious. "It's a pity some good men don't take up trotting; there's no prettier sport (unconsciously echoing Gay's opinion), and its very much maligned because people don't understand it, and think that _because_ it's trotting, it must necessarily be all crooked. I don't think there's much more finessing at it than in horse-racing, if the truth were known, do you, Hannen?" "I daresay not," Chris replied guardedly, "though a lot of nonsense is talked about racing, and the rascality of the turf, by people who have never been near a racecourse, and who judge racing-men as a body from the isolated cases in the papers, in which an absconding bank-clerk pleads betting as an excuse for defalcation!" "Too true," said Gay, "and--why, there's my dear old nurse in that dogcart! I _must_ speak to her--you two go on," and she made her way quickly to the trap, which contained a jolly, good-natured-looking woman, whose get-up betokened an almost too great prosperity.