The amateur simpleton receives the introduction of “my friend from Tattersall’s” with an air of eager credulity, and casually remarking that he has never before seen a race nor ever made a bet on one, raises the confederates’ hopes to the highest pitch. The “friend from Tattersall’s” has another “moral” for the next race, and recommends a sovereign placed on the selection; whereupon you consider it from this light and from that, and discuss it in all its bearings until they are half-crazed with anxiety. “Surely,” says one, “surely you can afford to back a certainty?” “Of course, _if_ it is a certainty,” you say; and then, with the conscience-stricken qualms of the good young man, “Is it quite right to bet on a certainty?” But the last touch of comedy comes when, having had those scruples satisfied, you insert an exploratory thumb and finger in your waistcoat pocket, and—find, regretfully, that you have come out without any money! The effect of this is magical, and as you walk up the course to have a quiet laugh, the bitter curses of the disappointed sharps come after you, in heartfelt undertones. The horse selected for a winner comes in with the ruck, as, of course, these fellows had foreseen. XXVI NEWMARKET at other than race-times does by no means proclaim its occupation to the chance traveller along the road. He must rise betimes and fare forth early who would see the sheeted racers going to or returning from their morning gallops; but such an early riser will find much to impress him. Two thousand horses are in training at Newmarket, but only he who in the brisk and racing early hours of the day sees the long processions belonging to the various owners filing at a walk along the High Street can realise the fact. Many a poor body is less warmly and comfortably clad than a racehorse out for his morning constitutional. Horse-cloths made with as much attention to individual fit as given one’s own overcoat cover their bodies and necks, and even clothe heads and ears, and are all decorated with the owner’s monogram. The trainer watches these morning gallops from the back of his own serviceable nag, and notes their “form” with the eye of a general officer inspecting troops. But he does not, as an American writer artlessly tells us, “amble by on his old-fashioned Suffolk Punch.” This little quotation shows you the danger of using terms not properly understood; for a Suffolk Punch is a horse of the dray-horse kind, and of the breed often used in ploughing; furrow, if not thoroughbred, and a thought too substantial for a saddle-horse.