“You’ll never get the chance. Take the jug, and hurry off, and mind you’re back here sharp. I shall give you five minutes; if you’re a second later, there’ll be a fine of sixpence. That’s an item to be added to the list. ‘Loitering and gossiping when sent on errands, six d.’ Go!” he ordered, placing his watch on the table. He was pinning the sheet of notepaper to the wall at the side of the looking-glass when his wife returned. Glancing at the watch, he waited grimly for her explanation. “Had to wait,” she said, “and find a boy selling evening newspapers.” “And what might you want, pray, with evening newspapers? Furthermore, where’s the jug?” “If you want beer, fetch it!” she replied. “That was a good joke of yours about the horse, but you’d better not let me catch you being quite so funny again. It upset me, and I don’t like being upset.” He snatched the journal from her. She compelled him to give it back and to take it properly. In the stop-press space he read out: “Vinolia, one; Gay Lothario, two; Messenger Boy, three.” Baynes stood gazing at the fire, making the clicking noises with his tongue which folk adopt when, in disconcerting circumstances, speech fails. “I’ve been figuring it out in my head,” she went on, “but I can’t make it come twice alike. Tear down that bit of paper and sit yourself there and reckon it up for me. Twenty-five times—” “I can’t do it. I can’t do it.” “Don’t you start being stupid,” commanded Mrs. Baynes. “Do as I tell you.” Baynes had written the figures, and was about to enter on the task of multiplication, with one hand gripping the top of his head, when he suddenly threw away the pencil. “My dear,” he said, “I want you to be so kind as to listen to me, and I must ask you not to be madder than you can possibly help. I admit the case is somewhat trying; but you have to remember that we all have our cross to bear. I never backed that horse!” A pause of some moments in length. “You mean,” said his wife slowly, “to look me in the face and to tell me that, after what you overheard on the tramcar—” “I never overheard nothing of the kind on the tramcar.” “Perhaps, William, you’ll kindly tell me what horse you did put the money on?” “I never,” he answered, “put no money on any horse whatsoever.” “Then where is the money?” “In the inside pocket of the jacket I’m wearing at the present moment,” he said sulkily. “But what did you intend to do with it?” “Hadn’t quite made up my mind about that. Idea was to prevent you from lording it over me. You see, my dear, I’d got accustomed to being master, and the sudden change was a bit trying. And in picking out what I thought was the unlikeliest gee-gee, I acted from the purest of motives, and for what I reckoned the best for all parties concerned. If I made a mistake, I’m sorry for it.”