"Twenty-four pounds to three and six pounds to three Peppermint, Mr. Heathcote's friend," he continued, and was taking Dollie's various commissions before I could move. "That's the way," said Dollie, as we struggled back up the stairs. "Those are the heads! If we only had Cabinet Ministers like that!" We were in time to see the start through our glasses a mile away over the crowds and the booths. A roar indicated that the horses were off and at once the hubbub below quieted, only to break out afresh into new offers as the horses began to assert themselves. One race, knowing men often say, is as good as another; only one horse can win anyway, and as desperate efforts to be that horse are made at Lingfield as at Newmarket, Ascot or Epsom. This may be true, on paper, but, as a matter of emotional fact, there is no race like the Derby, because there is no race with so much human interest behind it. These thousands of people cannot be disregarded; each brings something of intensity. And then the stage management of the Derby is so much more elaborate than that of any other race; the steady growth of interest in the horses, the daily bulletins in the press, the sweepstakes, and so forth. And the race itself--all horses starting at the same weight and the same age. No, there may by chance be finer riding in certain races of the year, and closer finishes, but the Derby horses start in an air more heavily charged with human electricity than any other, and, I imagine, always will. For heroic endurance on a great scale, the Grand National; but for the maximum of excitement, the Derby. An outsider won, and the favourite was not even placed; and immediately we knew the result we all knew why we should have backed it if only we had thought a little longer. But at the Derby thought is not easy; there is so much distraction, and the conditions of life are so upset, that one's ordinary mental processes refuse to work. The winner was a grey filly, and there was every reason why I, for one, should have known it would win, because the only horse that I had specially noticed on the way down was a grey filly rolling in a field. Surely there was the finger of Providence in that! On my mentioning this, Dollie asked with much asperity why I had not told him? "It meant nothing to me," I said, "partly because I am not a gambler, and not a little because I had no notion that any of the Derby runners were grey or fillies. Had I stayed at home and read the paper I might have known; absurd to bring me to the course and then expect me to know anything of the horses. There was no grey filly in the paddock." "No," said Dollie, "I'm afraid you're right. No one ever yet saw a real horse in the paddock--at least, not until the race was over." CHAPTER XVI IN WHICH FOUR-LEGS MAKE MUCH ANXIETY FOR TWO-LEGS AND SIR GASTON DEVELOPS OCCULT GIFTS