"Starting price, that means," Dollie explained. "The law allows starting-price betting anywhere, but betting of this kind only on race-courses. The difference is that in S.P. betting you don't know what the odds are until the race is finished, and in course betting you try to get the best odds you can. S.P. betting is chiefly done by telegram, and no money may change hands till after the race, otherwise it's illegal. They say the post office would smash if it weren't for betting." "Oh, do stop," I said; "you are giving me far too much to think about." Turning away from this predatory avaricious scene--for it is idle to call it anything else--I made my way to the distant paddock to see the innocent causes of all the trouble, the race-horses. It is one of the strangest mysteries in a world that specializes in such things, that this beautiful, loyal creature should leave behind it such a wake of seaminess and fraud. After a few minutes in the paddock I returned to the ring where Dollie and Farrar were still busy trying to find longer odds on their fancies; but the horses coming out of the paddock on their way to the starting-point sent Dollie upstairs at the run to see what the girls wanted to back. "Girls," he added, "always choose horses by either the jockey's face or his colours--and I'm hanged if it isn't as good a way as following what we call form." Dollie was an eternity on his mission, and I had a thousand elbows in my back in my efforts to remain where he had placed me; and I heard, I suppose, a thousand tips as to the winner passing between friends. But one phrase alone impressed me, uttered by a jovial old man to a youthful companion who might have been his nephew, "Always back the favourite to win, my boy," he said, "and the most likely of the outsiders both ways." Being always open to good counsel I determined to follow this advice; so when Dollie returned and asked me what I wished to back, I said I wanted four pounds on the favourite to win, and three pounds each way on Peppermint. Dollie opened his eyes. "You seem to know your own mind all right," he said. "I always determined to follow this rule," I said, "if ever I should take to betting--to back the favourite to win and a likely outsider both ways." Dollie whistled. "Are you taking me to the Derby or am I taking you?" he asked. "Very well, come and put it on. Naomi is on to Peppermint too; she says the jock's such a little angel. (She ought to hear him in the paddock!) Mrs. Farrar wants old rose and purple--he's on a hopeless ruin named Usquebaugh. See what you can get," Dollie added. I approached the reputed Christian, who was besieged by clients, and at last secured his ear. "I want to put four pounds on Paladin," I said. "Seven pounds to four, Mr. Heathcote's friend," he directed his clerk instantly, without even looking at me, but holding out his hand for the money. "And three pounds each way Peppermint," I said.