Handicapped in many ways, he had at least this advantage over the bulk of his brother-men:  that he was not hampered by scruples, principles, or tradition.

At thirty his beauty was already on the wane.  He was faded, fat, and tarnished; and already he was visibly going to pieces.

The end, which had been preparing in the deeps for years, came suddenly.

The story was an old one:  that of one woman and two men.  The three had driven back from Ascot in a hansom together.  There was supper, drink, and trouble at the lady’s flat.  The other man got a knife in him, and Joses got five years.

When he came out, he resumed his old haunts and earned a precarious living by watching.  He was almost the only watcher who could write, and his eye for a horse’s form was phenomenally good.  It was in those days that he came into touch with his future employers.

With an acute sense for those who could serve them, the Three J’s realised at once that this man was on a different level to that of other watchers.  They financed him liberally, advanced him money, and held a cheque to which in a moment of aberration Joses had signed Ikey Aaronsohnn’s name.  And he in his turn served them well if not faithfully.

When Chukkers rode the famous International that established him once and for all in a class by himself among cross-country riders, snatching an astounding victory on Hooka-burra from Lady Golightly, his win and the way he rode his race was largely due to Joses’s report on the favourite’s staying power.

“She’ll gallop three and three-quarter miles at top speed,” he had said, “and then bust like a bladder.  Bustle her all the way, and yours’ll beat her from the last fence.”

When Joses was put away for incendiarism, the Three J’s missed him far more than they would have cared to admit.  They had two bad seasons in succession, and a worse followed.  At the end of the third Chukkers, for the first time for seven years, no longer headed the list of winning jockeys.

Then Ikey carried off his jockey to the States to break his luck.

It was on this visit, at some old-fashioned meeting in the Southern States, so the story went, Chukkers discovered the mare from Blue Mounds.  All the world knows to-day how she re-established her jockey’s fame and made her own.

When, after an unforgettable season in Australia, he returned to England with the American mare, the pair had never been beaten.  And in the Old Country they repeated the performance of Australia.  Together they won the Sefton, the International, and last of all the National.  And though Chukkers had been disqualified in the last race, his fame and hers had reached a pinnacle untouched by any horse or man in modern racing history.

The star-spangled jacket led the world.

* * * * *

When Joses came out of prison he journeyed down at once to Dewhurst.