at the tails of Don't Touch Me and the Cunning One. A mile and a quarter of the race was run, and these two horses were held in with wrists of steel, while the riders sat as if they grew out of their saddles. Now they are coming into the straight run home. "A monkey to a pony on pink and saffron!" shouts a bookmaker; "a monkey to a pony, first past the post!" He is right in his judgment. The final struggle is not yet come, but slight efforts on the part of the jockeys enable Don't Touch Me and the Cunning One to thread through their horses and come to the front. Alfred clenches his teeth, and his fingers work into his palms, and his lips twitch convulsively. Nearer and nearer they come, increasing in every stride the distance between themselves and their competitors. Within five hundred yards from the winning post, they are neck and neck. "Pink wins! Saffron wins! Saffron's beat! Pink's done!" These words are yelled out frantically, and Alfred suffers a martyrdom. Suddenly the jockey of Don't Touch Me touches his horse slightly with his spur, and the noble creature bounds to the front, gaining a full half-length on the Cunning One. But the Cunning One's jockey raises his whip, and recovers his lost ground. Then ensues a grand struggle, every foot of ground being contested. They might be struggling for dear life, or for something dearer. Alfred follows them with his wild eyes. They pass like a flash of lightning, so close together that he does not know whether he has won or lost. His agony is increased by the conflicting cries, "The Cunning One wins! Don't Touch Me wins!" Which is right? A calm voice says, "I'll bet fifty to one that pink came in first;" and the speaker receives a swift grateful look from Alfred. What an age it seems before the black board is hoisted that proclaims the winner! Here it is at last. Hurrah! hurrah! The numbers proclaim Don't Touch Me first; the Cunning One second. Alfred gives a great sigh of relief; his heart was almost bursting; he wipes his forehead, and looks round with a triumphant air. The horse he backed has won the race, and he wins a hundred and seventy pounds. He sees the man from whom he has to receive the largest stake, and he walks towards him in an apparently unconcerned manner. The man is studying his book with a serious air; he has a bulbous face, and every knob on it is aflame, so that it looks like a mountain dotted with signal fires. Many of the people are eagerly canvassing the race; some are radiant, some are despairing. Here is one man tearing betting-tickets with his teeth, and flinging the pieces away savagely. Here is another, shouting exultantly to an acquaintance, "Nipped him this time, Jo! I put a tenner on!" Here is another, scowling at every face that meets his gaze. Here is one who staggers like a drunken man, but who nevertheless has not tasted liquor this day. Alfred has no eye for any of these; despair, joy, exultation, remorse, surge around him, and he does not heed them. He