“Vell, vhat matter that ven you have hit ’em?” expostulated the more philosophic Jew.

“Why, it is a fleecing of one,” retorted the welsher savagely, even amid his successes.  “A clear fleecing of one.  If one gets the better of a dandy chap like that, and brings him down neat and clean, one ought to have the spice of it.  One ought to see him wince and—­cuss ’em all!—­that’s just what they’ll never do.  No! not if it was ever so.  You may pitch into ’em like Old Harry, and those d——­d fine gentlemen will just look as if they liked it.  You might strike ’em dead at your feet, and it’s my belief, while they was cold as stone they’d manage to look not beaten yet.  It’s a fleecing of one—­a fleecing of one!” he growled afresh; draining down a great draught of brandy-heated Roussillon to drown the impatient conviction which possessed him that, let him triumph as he would, there would ever remain, in that fine intangible sense which his coarse nature could feel, though he could not have further defined it, a superiority in his adversary he could not conquer; a difference between him and his prey he could not bridge over.

The Jew laughed a little.

“Vot a child you are, you Big Ben!  Vot matter how he look, so long as you have de success and pocket de monish?”

Big Ben gave a long growl, like a mastiff tearing to reach a bone just held above him.

“Hang the blunt!  The yellows ain’t a quarter worth to me what it ’ud be to see him just look as if he knew he was knocked over.  Besides, laying again’ him by that ere commission’s piled up hatsful of the ready, to be sure; I don’t say it ain’t; but there’s two thou’ knocked off for Willon, and the fool don’t deserve a tizzy of it.  He went and put the paint on so thick that, if the Club don’t have a flare-up about the whole thing——­”

“Let dem!” said the Jew serenely.  “Dey can do vot dey like; dey von’t get to de bottom of de vell.  Dat Villon is sharp; he vill know how to keep his tongue still; dey can prove nothing; dey may give de sack to a stable-boy, or dey may think themselves mighty bright in seeing a mare’s nest, but dey vill never come to us.”

The welsher gave a loud, hoarse guffaw of relish and enjoyment.

“No!  We know the ins and outs of Turf Law a trifle too well to be caught napping.  A neater thing weren’t ever done, if it hadn’t been that the paint was put a trifle too thick.  The ’oss should have just run ill, and not knocked over, clean out o’ time like that.  However, there ain’t no odds a-crying over spilt milk.  If the Club do come a inquiry, we’ll show ’em a few tricks that’ll puzzle ’em.  But it’s my belief they’ll let it off on the quiet; there ain’t a bit of evidence to show the ’oss was doctored, and the way he went stood quite as well for having been knocked off his feed and off his legs by the woyage and sich like.  And now you go and put that swell to the grindstone for Act 2 of the comedy; will yer?”