It was for these reasons that George’s face wore more than its habitual composure, and the faces of his trainer and his jockey were alert, determined, and expressionless.  Blacksmith, a little man, had in his hand a short notched cane, with which, contrary to expectation, he did not switch his legs.  His eyelids drooped over his shrewd eyes, his upper lip advanced over the lower, and he wore no hair on his face.  The Jockey Swells’ pinched-up countenance, with jutting eyebrows and practically no cheeks, had under George’s racing-cap of “peacock blue” a subfusc hue like that of old furniture.

The Ambler had been bought out of the stud of Colonel Dorking, a man opposed on high grounds to the racing of two-year-olds, and at the age of three had never run.  Showing more than a suspicion of form in one or two home trials, he ran a bye in the Fane Stakes, when obviously not up to the mark, and was then withdrawn from the public gaze.  The Stable had from the start kept its eye on the Rutlandshire Handicap, and no sooner was Goodwood over than the commission was placed in the hands of Barney’s, well known for their power to enlist at the most appropriate moment the sympathy of the public in a horse’s favour.  Almost coincidentally with the completion of the Stable Commission it was found that the public were determined to support the Ambler at any price over seven to one.  Barney’s at once proceeded judiciously to lay off the Stable Money, and this having been done, George found that he stood to win four thousand pounds to nothing.  If he had now chosen to bet this sum against the horse at the then current price of eight to one, it is obvious that he could have made an absolute certainty of five hundred pounds, and the horse need never even have started.  But George, who would have been glad enough of such a sum, was not the man to do this sort of thing.  It was against the tenets of his creed.  He believed, too, in his horse; and had enough of the Totteridge in him to like a race for a race’s sake.  Even when beaten there was enjoyment to be had out of the imperturbability with which he could take that beating, out of a sense of superiority to men not quite so sportsmanlike as himself.

“Come and see the nag saddled,” he said to his brother Gerald.

In one of the long line of boxes the Ambler was awaiting his toilette, a dark-brown horse, about sixteen hands, with well-placed shoulders, straight hocks, a small head, and what is known as a rat-tail.  But of all his features, the most remarkable was his eye.  In the depths of that full, soft eye was an almost uncanny gleam, and when he turned it, half-circled by a moon of white, and gave bystanders that look of strange comprehension, they felt that he saw to the bottom of all this that was going on around him.  He was still but three years old, and had not yet attained the age when people apply to action the fruits of understanding; yet there was little doubt that