Jaggers and Chukkers met him.

It did not take the tout long to get a hang of the situation.

The National was coming on in a few weeks.  The mare had to win at all costs.

Since her victory and defeat at Aintree in the previous March she had never run but once in public, and that time had scattered her field.

Jaggers had been laying her up in lavender all the winter for the great race, and she was now at the top of her form.

They took Joses round to her loose-box.

Just back from work she was stripped and sweating, swishing her tail, savaging her manger with arched neck, tramping to and fro on swift, uneasy feet as her lad laboured at her.

So perfectly compact was she that the tout heard with surprise that she stood little short of sixteen hands.  The length of her rein compensated for the shortness of her back, and her hocks and hind-quarters were those of a panther, lengthy and well let-down.

The fat man ran his eye over her fair proportions.

“She’s beautiful,” he mused.

Indeed, the excellence of her form spoke to the heart of the poet in him.  He dwelt almost lovingly upon that astonishing fore-hand and the mouse-head with the wild eye that revealed the spirit burning within.  As her lad withdrew from her a moment, she gave that familiar toss of the muzzle familiar to thousands, which made a poet say that she was fretting always to transcend the restraint of the flesh.

“If she’s as good as she looks,” said Joses, “she’s good enough.”

“She’s better,” said the jockey with the high cheek-bones.  He passed his hand along the mare’s rein.  It was said that Chukkers had never cared for a horse in his life, and it was certain that many horses had hated Chukkers.  But it was common knowledge that he was fonder of the mare than he had ever been of any living creature.

“She’s got nothing up against her as I know of,” said Jaggers in his austere way.  “There’s Moonlighter, the Irishman, of course.”

“He can’t stay,” said Chukkers briefly.

“And Gee-Woa-There, the Doncaster horse.”

“He can’t gallop.”

“And Kingfisher, the West country crack.”

“He beats himself jumpin’.”

“And that’s about the lot—­only the Putnam horse,” continued the trainer.  “They think I know nothing about him.  I know some, and I want to know more.”

“I’ll settle that,” said Joses.

The jockey was pulling the mare’s ears thoughtfully.

“You’d like to take a little bit of Putnam’s, I daresay?” he said.

“I wouldn’t mind if I did,” replied the tout.

“It was them done you down at the trial,” continued the jockey.  “Old Mat and his Monkey and Silver Mug.  The old gang.”

“Regular conspiracy,” said Jaggers censoriously.  “Ought to be ashamed of themselves.  Doin’ down a pore man like that.”

The three moved out into the yard.