That is a difficult question to answer, when the voices are in the night. CHAPTER I THE TOTALISATOR 'What's the big blackboard with white sums?' asked little Jerry Arbuthnot. Jack Raymond, who was holding the child's hand, looked down at the six-year-old figure in the natty riding-suit so like his own, save for the racing silk which he himself wore half-hidden by a covert coat. 'It is the map of India,' he began, then pulled up at the sight of Jerry's face. 'You shouldn't believe everything you're told, young man--it hampers the sense of humour! No, Jerry, that's the totalisator--a calculating machine for doing sums in the compound rules. Ask Miss Drummond if it isn't?' The girl thus challenged let the cool disdain, which is nowadays so often the prevailing expression of young womanhood for manhood, become slightly more aggressive. 'It is a betting machine, Gerald----' 'Don't profane the word, Miss Drummond,' interrupted the man. 'Betting is a bracing mental exercise. You back your opinion to be right against fixed odds. But this five-rupee-in-the-slot-trust-in-Providence business is a demoralising compromise. You stand neither to win nor lose.' 'Then, please, what does come to the five wupees?' asked Jerry urgently. 'Practical boy!' commented Jack Raymond with a laugh. 'It is "as you was" generally; for you see, Jerry, the world backs the favourite as a rule. It likes to follow a lead! And, if you divide the total of the tickets by their number, it's poor fun! So take my advice, young man; when you totalise, go for a rank outsider and stand to collar the lot!' Lesley Drummond, being the child's governess, frowned. 'I see your mother arriving, Gerald,' she said, 'and we were to join her at once. Come!' But Jerry held his new-found friend fast by the hand. 'You come too,' he petitioned, 'my mother is just an orful nice person.' There was a moment's pause, during which the child's grip on the man tightened, before the latter replied, 'I know that, Jerry; your mother and I are old friends; but I have only time to see you safe across the green. I'm up in this race.' 'I used to wide waces when I was in India once,' began the child, when Lesley cut him short. 'You never rode a race in your life, Gerald, and I can't allow you to say that you have.' Then she turned suddenly, in the purely impersonal confidence of grievance, to the stranger beside her (for they had only just been introduced to each other), and said, 'I can't think why, but ever since Gerald landed in Bombay, just a week ago, he has had a bad habit of claiming to have done all sorts of things he never _could_ have done. Lady Arbuthnot thinks it is because the child really does remember India a little. You see he was past four when he went home. But that,' she added magisterially, with a frown for the culprit, 'does not excuse telling stories--does it?'