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Often Checkers had won and lost more money than was involved in his present venture and stood it stoically; but never before had his need been so great, and he had reason to know that necessity and luck have at best little more than a speaking acquaintance. Exultantly, therefore, he skipped down the stairs into the betting-ring. "You can 't keep a squirrel on the ground," he chuckled.
Those who can carry their minds back for twenty years must remember the foolish young nobleman who sold a splendid estate to pay the yelling vulgarians of the betting-ring. They cheered him when he all but beggared himself; they hissed him when he failed once to pay.
That hot and fevered youth who stands in the betting-ring and nervously pencils his race-card never thinks that the time of weakness and sadness and weariness is coming on; that gray and tremulous old man who bends over the roulette-table never thinks that he will speedily drop into a profundity deeper than ever plummet sounded.
He added confidentially: "The ponies are still running, you know, even if the betting-ring is closed and there are other ways " He paused significantly. "I see, a sport, eh?" Pennold darted a quick glance at his wife. "Well, don't let it get the best of you, young feller. Remember what I told you about Jimmy Brunell at least, what the report of him was.
Good information, careful betting playing horses for place when he thought they could win; sometimes not risking a cent all day; watching the owners, standing in with the jockeys all this put him nicely ahead for a while, and staved off the evil day for long. But the eternal law of average will not down, and the percentage in the betting-ring is absurdly against the bettor.
Hardened, despondent, and utterly careless; without the restraining influence of worthy friends or home ties to soften and hold him; with money, but no occupation; time, but nothing to do with it little wonder is it that, after the great White City finally closed its gates, shutting him off from his one simple pleasure, he gradually drifted back to the stirring scenes of his youth the races and the betting-ring.
He makes a pencil-mark opposite the name of each starter on his racing-card, and jots down the name of the jockey. Raff, he sees, is riding Green Cloak. That is in its favour. When he gets back to the betting-ring, the bookmakers are shouting hoarsely against each other. Liberal is a very hot favourite. They are shouting: "I'll take two to one. I'll take two to one. Five to one bar one.
Harsh cries from the betting-ring still ascended at intervals, though the majority of the vast crowd had settled down to watch the race. With a thrill of pleasure, Adrien saw that Lady Constance had kept a seat vacant for him beside herself; and with a light word to Lady Merivale as he passed, he took his place, and unstrapping the heavy field-glasses, arranged them to Lady Constance's liking.
Handsome still, but with a faded look, like a face that had grown pallid and wrinkled in the feverish atmosphere of vicious haunts under the flaring gas that glares down upon the green cloth of a rouge-et-noir table, in the tumult of crowded race-courses, the press and confusion of the betting-ring it was the face of a battered roué, who had lived his life, and outlived the smiles of fortune; the face of a man to whom honest thoughts and hopes had long been unknown.
Two were Englishman in appearance, though the figure of languid elegance in evening dress that might have graced the lounge of a West End club had a voice soft with Celtic brogue. The other owned a gross body clothed in loud checks and, with his mean blue eyes, his mottled complexion, and cunning leer, would not have seemed out of place in a betting-ring.
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