"All right! All right!" screamed Alfred, and the recognised scouts took up the cry, passing it from list to list. Off scampered Alfred to get his forty pounds, and came away radiant, with eight five-pound notes and his own deposited stake of eight pounds clenched in his fist. "How much have I won?" he thought. On the first and second races he had lost six pounds. Six from forty, thirty-four. That was good thirty-four pounds were not a bad day's work. "I knew luck would turn," said Alfred exultantly. "I knew luck would turn! Let me see. Thirty-four pounds a day--how much is that a year?" And began to reckon up his thousands, and look a long way ahead. He had now in his pocket nearly sixty pounds. He gave a shilling to an old gipsy woman, who detained him a few moments by telling him that a beautiful young lady with brown eyes was thinking of him at that moment, "Of course she is," exclaimed Alfred merrily, breaking away from the fortune-teller with a laugh. "I could have told you that, mother!" He was in the highest of spirits. "What shall I buy for Lizzie?" he thought. "I'll buy her a watch. And Lil, too, I mustn't forget her. I want some new clothes myself. I'll buy that diamond ring young Shrewboy at the office wants to sell. He only asks twelve pounds for it, and it just fits my little finger. It sparkles like anything! There's that money, too, I borrowed from the box: I must put it back." If he had been wise, he would not have indulged in these extravagant anticipations; he would have been content with his winnings. But who ever knew a wise gamester? He went to the best drinking-bar on the race-course, and treated himself to a bottle of champagne; and said to himself, as he drank it, that now his luck was in, and he would be a fool not to back it. He might go home that afternoon with two or three hundred pounds in his pocket, if he had a spark of courage in him. Nothing venture, nothing have. How had the leviathans of the ring made their money? First by luck, then by pluck. Why shouldn't he be one of them? Why should he not buy his own trap, have private boxes at the music-halls, wear diamond rings and diamond pins, and an Ulster coat down to his heels? Some of them had country houses and race-horses of their own, and ate and drink of the best; as for champagne, they might swim in it. The iron was hot; now was the time to strike it. Flushed and elated, he walked into the ring. The names of the horses for the fourth race were being chalked on the black board. By a strange chance one was named Don't Touch Me. There was nothing very singular in this appellation; as a matter of fact you will find in the sporting papers of to-day a list of outlawed horses, among which you will see such names as Bird of Prey, Phryne, Roll Call, I Must Not Touch It, and others as significant. Now this horse, that Alfred was disposed to back directly he saw that, it was among the runners, carried its own recommendation with it.