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Updated: May 17, 2025
There were some who said that, across country, he was the very best, and that, as a judge of a hunter, few excelled him. Of late years he had crept into credit as a betting-man. No one supposed that he had much capital to work with; but still, when he lost a bet he paid it.
But the betting-lists are the attraction these are the dice of the betting-man: a section of one of the side-walls within the office is devoted to them. They consist of long strips of paper each race having its own slip on which are stated the odds against the horses.
There is not one word to be said in favour of this vile game. The old-fashioned courser at least got exercise and air; but the modern betting-man wants neither; he wants only to make wagers and add to his pile of money.
The very face of a betting-man is enough to let you know what his soul is like; it is a face such as can be seen nowhere but on the racecourse or in the betting-club: the last trace of high thought has vanished, and, though the men may laugh and indulge in verbal horse-play, there is always something carnivorous about their aspect.
Among the guests was Horace Levinge, a pale, dark man, with a face that was decidedly handsome, in spite of its Jewish contour, and the excessive fullness of the scarlet, sensual lips. His grandfather, report said, had been a prize-fighting Israelite, and afterward a celebrated betting-man equally eminent in either ring for an unscrupulous scoundrelism which made his fortune.
The slow coursing of the old style would not do for the fiery betting-man; but we shall have fun fast and furious presently.
But there is also a light, flimsy, fly-away-kind of speculator, a May-day betting-man a youth fresh, perhaps, from school and the country, with whom his friends have hardly yet made up their minds what to do who is at present seeing as much as he can see of town, upon what he finds decidedly small means.
The chase in the open is cruel there is no denying it for poor puss dies many deaths ere she bids her enemies good-bye; but still she has a chance for life, and thus the sport, inhuman as it is, has a praiseworthy element of fairness in it. But the betting-man, the foul product of civilization's depravity, cast his eye on the old-fashioned sport and invaded the field.
Practice makes perfect; and the chaperon is as much at home here as the stockbroker on 'Change, or the betting-man in the ring, or the fisherman amidst the roar and turmoil of the waves.
Number two is a burly brute of five-and-thirty, in a tall stiff hat; is a composite as to his clothes of betting-man and fighting-man; is whiskered; has a staring pin in his breast, along with his right hand; has insolent and cruel eyes: large shoulders; strong legs booted and tipped for kicking.
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