Billiter kept his five-pound note, unwilling to risk it with another bookmaker on the laughing-stock of a Punchinello, and sauntered away moodily. He was a most injured man. Old Joe Jenks doubted his good faith. Now, was there a single horse selected for his patron to back upon which any student of racing outside a lunatic asylum would have staked money? Not one. He could lay his hand on his honest heart and swear it. And had he staked a penny on his selections? No. He could swear to that, too. He had not (fool that he was) asked Quixtus for a commission. Through his honourable dealing he was a poor man. The thought was bitter. He had run straight with Jenks. It was not his fault if the devil had got into the horses so that every shocking outsider, backed by Quixtus, revealed ultra-equine capacities. What could a horse do against the superhorse? Nothing. What could Billiter himself do? Nothing. Except have a drink. In the circumstances it was the only thing to do. He went into the bar of the grand stand and ordered a whisky and soda. It sizzled gratefully down a throat burning with a sense of wrong. His moral tone restored, he determined to live in poverty no more for the sake of a quixotic principle, and, proceeding to a ready-money bookmaker of his acquaintance, pulled out his five-pound note and backed Rosemary, a certain winner (such was his private and infallible information) at eight to one. This duty to himself accomplished, he went to the grand stand to view the race, leaving Quixtus to do that which seemed best to him. The bell rang, the course was cleared, the numbers put up; the horses cantered gaily past. At the sight of Rosemary, a shiny bay in beautiful condition, Billiter’s heart warmed; at the sight of Punchinello, a scraggy crock who had never won a race in his inglorious life, Billiter sniffed scornfully. If Old Joe Jenks was such a fool as to refuse a free gift of two pounds ten—they had agreed to halve the spoils—the folly thereof lay entirely on Old Joe Jenks’s head. The start was made. For a long time the horses ran in a bunch. Then Rosemary crept ahead. Billiter’s moustache beneath the levelled field-glasses betrayed a happy smile. Rosemary increased her lead. At the turn into the straight, something happened. She swerved and lost her stride. Three others dashed by, among them the despised Punchinello. They passed the post in a flash, Punchinello first. Billiter murmured things at which the world, had it heard them, would have grown pale, and again sought the bar. Emerging thence he went in quest of his patron. He had not far to go. Quixtus sat on a wooden chair at the back of the grand stand reading a vellum covered _Elzevir_ duodecimo edition of Saint Augustine’s Confessions. When Billiter approached he rose and thrust the volume into the tail pocket of his frock-coat. “Was that a race?” he asked. “Race. Of course it was. _The_ race. Didn’t you see it?” “Thank goodness, no,” said Quixtus. “Did any horse win?”