As they said themselves not without grimness, “Gee!—­Don’t we know Chukkers?—­Didn’t we riz him?  His father was a Frisco Chink, and his mother a Mexican half-breed.  You can tell us nothing about him we don’t know.  We admit it all.  Wipe it out.  If she’d been ridden by the straightest feller that ever sat in the pigskin the result’d have been the same.  Are you going to give America best in your big race?  Is John Bull a bleatin’ baa-lamb?”

And so Hands off and no Hanky-Panky was the war-chaunt of the young American bloods whom great Cunarders vomited on to the docks at Liverpool and P.-and-O.’s landed at Tilbury to join the Ikey’s Own, who had been on watch throughout the winter.

* * * * *

The National always takes place on the Friday of Aintree week.

All the week special trains were running Liverpool-ward from the ends of the British Isles.  London, Glasgow, Cardiff, and Plymouth each sent their contingents speeding north on the same engrossing errand.  All day and night people were turning out in their thousands, hanging over bridges, lining railway embankments, to see the great engines with the Kangaroo bound to their buffer-plates coming through, yes, and cheering them.

The Boys in the corridor trains stood at the windows with folded arms, watched the waving crowds grimly, and winked at each other.

They had a profound admiration for John Bull’s capacity for roguery, and an equally profound belief in their own ability to go one better.

Last year J.B. had bested them—­and they thought all the better of him for it.  This year they meant to get their own back—­and a bit more.

          We are coming, Uncle Ikey, we are coming millions strong,
          For to see the haughty English don’t do our Ikey wrong,

they sang out of the windows with provocative enjoyment.

The people waving on the embankments were in fact innocent of crime, committed or conceived.  They had no champion of their own, and with a certain large simplicity they hailed as theirs the mare who had crossed the seas to trample on them.

Liverpool made holiday for the occasion.

The Corporation feasted its American visitors, while the big ship-owners gave a dance at the Wellington Rooms.

The Adelphi Hotel was the headquarters of the Beyond-the-Seas folk, and it was full to overflowing.  In the huge dining-room, where every year the Waterloo Cup dinner is held, there was an immense muster the night before the race.  Lord Milburn, the Prime Minister, was there, with the Mayor of Liverpool on his left, and the American Ambassador upon his right.  One famous Ex-President of the Great Republic was present, and many of the most distinguished citizens of the two countries; Ikey Aaronsohnn with his eternal twinkle, was there, and Jaggers looking like a Church of England Bishop.  Chukkers alone was absent.  And he was lying low upstairs, it was said, with one of Ikey’s Own at his bedside, and another over his door, to see that no harm befell him before the great day dawned.  America might not like the great jockey, but she meant him to ride her mare to victory.