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In fact, this is his Sanctuary and he peddles under the eye of the police. "Holy Land?" Ha, ha! "All the patriarchs out of the Bible here?" Oh, the vociferous gentlemen with patriarchal names in velveteen coats under the banners and canvas sign-boards Moses, Aaron, and so forth? They were the "bookies," otherwise bookmakers, generally Jews and sometimes Welshers.
Once or twice there were rows between Ikey's Own the Yankee doodlers, as the local wits called them and the English silver-ring bookies; and the cause of the quarrels was invariably the same the treatment of the mare at last year's National. Throughout the week Boy went her quiet, strenuous way, unconscious of the commotion about her, or careless of it.
Chukkers was not the only one who seized the situation. The bookies absorbed it in a flash the outsider's form, the jockey's colours, the significance of both. It was Old Mat's horse Old Mat who had sprung surprises on the ring so often in his time. Rumour had always said that the horse was by Berserker. Then they had disbelieved. Now well, he looked it. Suddenly the ring went mad.
His spirit was in his eyes, and his eyes on that bobbing speck of green flowing swiftly toward him with sudden lurches and forward flings at the fences. All around him men were raging, cheering, and stamping. What the bookies were yelling nobody could hear; but it was clear from their faces that they believed the favourite was beat.
Nor that track fortunes are only made by bookies or exceptionally wealthy or brainy owners; that a plunger comes out on top once in a million times. That the track, to live, must bleed "suckers" by the thousand, and that he, Colonel Desha, was one of the bled. He was on the wrong side of the table.
As for the bookies who hissed the horse on the course who's to pity them? Didn't they see the old gee in the paddock eh, what! Hadn't they as good a chance as any of us to spot that dotty leg. If I'd a been born with a little white choker round my swan's-down, I'd have shouted the news from the mulberry tree.
Blinky Bill had a half-share in all the bookies' winnings, so he chuckled grimly as he went to the rails to watch the race. They're off. And what is this that flashes to the front, while the howls of the bookies rise like the yelping of fiends in torment? It is Dodger Smith on Tin Can, and from the grandstand there is a shrill feminine yell of triumph as the gallant pony sails past the post.
The best horse won." He was a backer of Lauzanne. "Bet yer life the bookies won't part till the numbers of the placed horses an' riders are up on that board again. They've run them down, don't you see?" chimed in the Tout. "I'll take two to one The Dutchman gets it," said a backer of that horse. "There's a job on, and they'll both get disqualified.
Chukkers was leaving the rails to swing for the Canal Turn. The Englishmen and bookies, their hands to their mouths, were screaming exhortations, warnings, advice, to the little fair jockey far away. "Canal Turn!" "Dirty Dago!" "The old game!" "Watch him, lad!" "His only chance!" "Riding for the bump!" Old Mat paid no heed. "Mouse bump a mountain," he grunted. "But Chukkers won't get the chance."
The unwashed face looked at him in blank amazement, then it wrinkled in a mirthful laugh of derision. "What d' 'ell you goin' to Gravesend for, den? Blamed if I don't believe you dough you look it. Say, is dat straight goods did you never have a bet in your life?" "Never did." "Well, I'm damned! Say, I believe you've got de best of it, dough. Wish I'd never bucked ag'in' de bookies."
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