But when I went to look for the person with whom I had made my bet, I was unable to find him anywhere, and I have never met him since.  He had about him ten pounds, the amount of my bet, which he had insisted on receiving as a deposit, “not necessarily for publication,” he said, “but as a guarantee of good faith.”  Race-courses are crowded, confusing places, and I doubt not, that so scrupulous a man was also looking for me.  But we have never met.  If this meets his eye, probably he will send a cheque for L700 to the office of Mr. Punch.  I have often regretted the circumstance, as it was my most fortunate coup on the Turf, and above all, reflected credit on my judgment of a horse.

Conversing afterwards with a friend on this event, I expressed surprise that my horse had not been a favourite, considering his agreeable exterior.

“Why, you Juggins,” he answered, “Rumtifoo was a moral—­everybody knew that; but everybody knew he wasn’t meant; he was being kept for the Polehampton Stakes.  He only won because he got the better of little BOTHERBY, his jockey, who couldn’t hold him.  Why, the crowd nearly murdered him, and his master sacked him on the spot—­the little idiot!”

I do not quite understand this explanation.  Poor Rumtifoo was “moral,” like the “moral mare” mentioned by ARISTOTLE in the Ethics.  He did his best to win, and he did win; what else can you ask for in a horse?

There is, apparently, more in horse-racing than meets the eye.  I am not addicted to remembering much about the “previous performances” of horses, as some men are, who will tell you that Cynic was third in the Kelso Hunt Cup for last year, and that you ought to keep an eye on him for the Ayrshire Handicap.  But I have remarked that horses are not like men; they do not always run almost equally well, though the conditions of the race seem similar.  No doubt this is owing to the nervousness of the animal, who may be discouraged by the noise, the smell of bad tobacco, and so forth.

I have given up Racing.  That was after last year’s Ascot meeting.  I was staying at a country house, some days before, and somehow I lost my betting-book.  It is really extraordinary how things do get lost.  Perhaps I left it in a railway carriage.  Afterwards I tried to put my bets, as far as I could remember them, down on a large sheet of paper, and I think I got it very nearly right.  But I left the paper lying about in the library in a very interesting first edition of Plotinus, I believe, and either the housemaid burned it, or my host threw it into the waste-paper basket.  At all events, it was lost, and I have no head for figures, and things got mixed somehow.  The book-maker’s recollection of the circumstances was not the same as mine.  But I began quite a fresh book, on imaginative principles, on the course.  I had not a good Ascot.  And as Racing gives me a headache, and I seldom meet any people on the Turf who are at all interested in the same things as myself, I have given it up for good.  They say I am a good deal regretted by the Ring.  It is always pleasant to remember having made a favourable impression.