"Lord! If I could get the mater to part--only a pony--I'd buy a satchel and start bookmaking in the half-crown ring myself. It's Tom Tiddler's ground if you've got a nut on you." "Queer work for a 'Varsity man?" "Deed sight better than bear-leading, or going usher in a school. Fun! Change! Fly about! What more do you want?" "Do you like to hear the ring curse? Dick and Alf often make me goose-skinned." "What matter, so you cop the ready?" "Do you read now?" "Not such a Juggins. I think my Oxford time was all wasted. Of course, I liked to hear Jowett palaver, and it was quiet and nice enough; but give me life. Bet all day; dinner at the Rainbow, Pav., or Trocadero, and Globe to finish up. That's life!" If anyone had chances this youth had them, and now his ambition is to bet half-crowns with the riddlings of Creation. This universe is getting to be a little too much for me. Come down, pipe; I shall go in the Chequers parlour to-night, and play the settled citizen. MERRY JERRY AND HIS FRIENDS. I never saw such a cheerful face as Jerry's. Master Blackey can smile and smile; he can smile on me even now, though I know almost to a certainty that it was he who left that discoloured ring round my throat not long ago. But Blackey can scowl also, whereas Jerry never ceases to look benignant and jolly. He is a fine young fellow is Jerry, six feet high, straight as a lance, ruddy, clear-skinned, and with the bluest, brightest eye you can see. When he walks he is upright and stately as the best of Guardsmen, without any military stiffness; when he spars he is active as a leopard, and his mode of landing with his left is at once terrible and artistic. Sometimes he drinks a little too much, and then his sweet smile becomes fatuous, but he never is unpleasant. The girls from the factory admire him sincerely; they call him Merry Jerry, and he accepts their homage with serenity. He never takes the trouble to show any deference towards his admirers; their amorous glances and giggling are inevitable tributes to his fascinations, and he takes it all as a matter of course. Like Blackey and the Ramper, Jerry never does any work, and he is supposed to have private means. His speech is quite correct, and even elegant, and although he does not converse on exalted topics, he is a singularly pleasant companion in his way. Most of his talk is about horse-racing, and he never reads anything but the sporting papers. In that taste he resembles most of those who go to The Chequers. The wrangling, the cursing, the whispered confidences that make up the nightly volume of noise nearly all have reference to racing subjects. The raggedest wretch at the bar puts on horsey airs when any great race is to be decided; he may not know a horse from a mule, but he invariably volunteers his opinion, and if he can raise a shilling he backs his fancy. Polite gentlemen in Parliament and elsewhere do not appear to know that there are something like one million British adults whose