Still Incubus ran lightly before Prunella, half a length ahead, kicking dust in her face and making irritating remarks, while the enraged filly laid her ears back and bared white teeth to snap at her rival. One length before the finish line Incubus suddenly stopped short, leaving momentum to carry Prunella over the line to victory! Prunella had won the race. Incubus was second but was disqualified for conduct unbecoming a horse and a lady. It was never determined who had run third. "Together again at last, Watson," Incubus said during the joyful reunion in the paddock. "Ah, but it's been a long, long time...." "Two weeks," commented the jockey, who had ridden Prunella. "Listen, pipsqueak," Incubus told him irately. "I've spent the whole two weeks cooking up this speech and I don't want a half-pint like you spoiling it. It's been a long, long time, Watson...." Prunella nickered. "None of _your_ lip, either," Incubus said. "Where would you have been if I hadn't won your race for you? Oh, you can run if you want to, can you? _Ha! Ha! Plater!_" Prunella neighed angrily. "Okay, Watson'll enter you in a claimer without me and we'll see what you can do." She turned toward her owner. "And now, Watson, I trust you have a hot tub prepared. I'm so-o-o-o tired...." * * * * * The racing secretary entered Incubus for an allowance with some misgivings. "But if she behaves again this time the way she did last she's out, Watson. Suspended--disqualified! Can't have that sort of thing going on, you know." "She's actually the most tractable of horses, sir," Watson assured him. "It's merely that Mr. Godlove didn't know how to handle her." "Oh--ah," the racing secretary said. "And I'd like to enter Prunella in the five-thousand-dollar claimer." The racing secretary smiled. "Well, Mr. Watson, you don't have to be afraid that anybody'll claim _her_. Godlove has spread the word around. Now everybody's afraid to claim a Watson horse." Prunella won handily in her claimer and Incubus breezed to victory in her allowance. "Bet on Watson horses," the word went round the tracks. Incubus won a Class C, Class B and Class A handicap in swift progression, Prunella came in first in two seven-thousand-dollar claimers and second in a ten-thousand-dollar one. And then Incubus came in last in a stake race at Aqueduct. "What's the matter with you, Incubus?" Watson demanded. "You can run ten times around the track before any of these nags could reach the quarter-mile pole." Incubus lay on her back in the hay and chewed reflectively on a straw. "You know, Watson," she said, "there are finer things in life than racing." "What, for instance?" She simpered. "I've been talking to Pamplemousse--you know, Godlove's horse--and he says it isn't ethical what I'm doing, that I'm competing with horses way below my class, that it isn't fair." "But there aren't any horses in your class."