Policemen rushed in at all points, rural and metropolitan, breathless, austere, and, of course, too late.  Bertie turned to them, with a slight wave of his hand, to sign them away.

“Don’t trouble yourselves!  It’s nothing you could interfere in; take care that person doesn’t come into the betting ring again, that’s all.”

The Seraph, Lord Constantia, Wentworth, and may others of his set, catching sight of the turmoil and of “Beauty,” with the great square-set figure of Ben Davis pressed before him through the mob, forced their way up as quickly as they could; but before they reached the spot Cecil was sauntering back to meet them, cool and listless, and a little bored with so much exertion; his cheroot in his mouth, and his ear serenely deaf to the clamor about the ditch.

He looked apologetically at the Seraph and the others; he felt some apology was required for having so far wandered from all the canons of his Order as to have approached “a row,” and run the risk of a scene.

“Turf must be cleared of these scamps, you see,” he said, with a half sigh.  “Law can’t do anything.  Fellow was trying to ‘get on’ with the young one, too.  Don’t bet with those riff-raff, Berk.  The great bookmakers will make you dead money, and the little Legs will do worse to you.”

The boy hung his head, but looked sulky rather than thankful for his brother’s interference with himself and the welsher.

“You have done the Turf a service, Beauty—­a very great service; there’s no doubt about that,” said the Seraph.  “Law can’t do anything, as you say; opinion must clear the ring of such rascals; a welsher ought not to dare to show his face here; but, at the same time, you oughtn’t to have gone unsteadying your muscle, and risking the firmness of your hand at such a minute as this, with pitching that fellow over.  Why couldn’t you wait till afterward? or have let me do it?”

“My dear Seraph,” murmured Bertie languidly, “I’ve gone in to-day for exertion; a little more or less is nothing.  Besides, welshers are slippery dogs, you know.”

He did not add that it was having seen Ben Davis taking odds with his young brother which had spurred him to such instantaneous action with that disreputable personage; who, beyond doubt, only received a tithe part of his deserts, and merited to be double-thonged off every course in the kingdom.

Rake at that instant darted, panting like a hot retriever, out of the throng.  “Mr. Cecil, sir, will you please come to the weights—­the saddling bell’s a-going to ring, and—­”

“Tell them to wait for me; I shall only be twenty minutes dressing,” said Cecil quietly, regardless that the time at which the horses should have been at the starting-post was then clanging from the clock within the Grand Stand.  Did you ever go to a gentleman-rider race where the jocks were not at least an hour behind time, and considered themselves, on the whole, very tolerably punctual?  At last, however, he sauntered into the dressing-shed, and was aided by Rake into tops that had at length achieved a spotless triumph, and the scarlet gold-embroidered jacket of his fair friend’s art, with white hoops and the “Coeur Vaillant se fait Royaume” on the collar, and the white, gleaming sash to be worn across it, fringed by the same fair hands with silver.