INIGO COURT
"It's the prettiest sport in the world," declared Gay Lawless. "I think Mr. Mackrell just got up, don't you, Chris?"

The man looked at his companion amusedly.

"I hope so, but I'm no judge of this game, you know." There was a shade of contempt in his voice.

Gay's eyes were fixed on the number board, and she clapped her hands when No. 6 was hoisted.

"He's won all right," she said; "he is having his horse cooled out." Then she had time to remember the sneer in Chris's voice.

"Of course I know you're mad on steeple-chasing," she said, tilting her nose in the air, "but you needn't be bigoted; it's not the only sport, and anyhow you can't deny that Mr. Mackrell can drive; almost as well as you can ride," she concluded generously.

Chris bowed.

"Carlton Mackrell is a brilliant whip," he agreed, though he made a mental note that it was about the only thing Mackrell could do. "Let's go and congratulate him."

They left the members' enclosure, and made their way by the side of the track to the stables, where they found Carlton Mackrell talking to one of his swipes. He came to meet them, and his dark face showed the pleasure he felt at Gay Lawless' congratulations.

"Thank you," he said, "I expected to win my heat. Did you back my horse?"

"Of course," cried the girl. "Evidently others besides you expected Billy Q. to win, for everyone was backing him. Although I got in early, I had to lay five to two on, to five shillings," she laughed. "It doesn't take very much money to paralyse the market, does it?"

Carlton Mackrell shook his head.

"No," he said, "the sight of gold creates a panic, and an owner does not dare back his horse personally, unless he's prepared to lay odds on what very often is not an even money chance. The ring think the business is inspired, you know," he laughed, "and begin to pinch the price at once. However, as I don't bet, it doesn't affect me, though I like my friends to help themselves whenever I run anything."

He turned to Chris Hannen, who was attentively studying a big bay horse with the eye of a connoisseur. "You don't often come trotting, do you?" he asked.

The two men had known each other for years, but the fact that they both admired Gay Lawless had not strengthened their friendship very considerably. Still both were sportsmen, and, appreciated each other's talents in their respective branches with a genuineness not met with outside sporting circles.

"No," Chris replied, glancing at Gay from the corner of a twinkling eye, "in fact, this is my first appearance on a track."

"And your last, I should imagine. You don't look supremely happy," and Mackrell laughed.

"That's a poor compliment to me, Mr. Mackrell," Gay said mischievously; "you forget Mr. Hannen is on escort duty. It's quite by chance he is here, but, as you know, I'm stopping at Flytton for a few days, and Mr. Hannen walked over from Epsom—'wasting' he calls it."

She looked reproachfully at Chris. "There's one advantage about trotting, anyhow—you haven't to be perpetually worrying about your weight, or live on lemons, and tea, and gin!" She made a little face. "You must carry 10 stones 10 lbs. in a sulky, mustn't you—that's the minimum?"

"Yes, quite right," Mackrell assented, "that enables most men to drive themselves, though a lot employ professionals. I can't see any fun in the game, unless one drives one's own horses. Let's go back, and watch the next heat. It's a handicap, you know, one for what the horse owners call "pigs," he explained. Then his face grew serious. "It's a pity some good men don't take up trotting; there's no prettier sport (unconsciously echoing Gay's opinion), and its very much maligned because people don't understand it, and think that because it's trotting, it must necessarily be all crooked. I don't think there's much more finessing at it than in horse-racing, if the truth were known, do you, Hannen?"

"I daresay not," Chris replied guardedly, "though a lot of nonsense is talked about racing, and the rascality of the turf, by people who have never been near a racecourse, and who judge racing-men as a body from the isolated cases in the papers, in which an absconding bank-clerk pleads betting as an excuse for defalcation!"

"Too true," said Gay, "and—why, there's my dear old nurse in that dogcart! I must speak to her—you two go on," and she made her way quickly to the trap, which contained a jolly, good-natured-looking woman, whose get-up betokened an almost too great prosperity.

Gay's grey eyes sparkled with fun and pleasure as she came alongside, keeping just out of the line of her old nurse's view.

"Min!" she cried

The occupant of the dogcart turned in her seat so suddenly, as to seriously disturb the balance of the shafts on the rail.

"Miss Gay!" she cried. "Well, I am surprised! Fancy meeting you here!" In a moment she was out of the cart, and had folded Gay to her ample bosom, while laughter and tears chased each other alternately across her comely face. Gay, for her part, was every bit as delighted to see her old nurse again, and quite oblivious of the scene about them, they climbed into the dogcart and sat, holding each other's hands, and chattering as only two women can. A great deal of what they talked about was of interest to nobody but themselves, but the horses racing past recalled Gay to the work in hand.

"Isn't it exciting, Min?" she cried, focussing her glasses as they sped past the stands, and round the bend to the back stretch. "I think it's ripping, and far more fun than galloping. What a smash there'd be if one of these sulkies—isn't that what they call the spider-looking thing they sit in?—ran into each other!"

But Min did not reply. Her eyes were riveted on the cluster of horses drawing round the corner into the home-stretch.

"I think we've won this," she exclaimed. Then becoming excited she began to bounce about in her seat.

"Go on, Bob!" she cried. "Set him alight! Oh, don't look round, it's all your own!"

Suddenly, fifty yards from the judges' stand, one of the back-markers came with a rattle wide on the outside, the driver urging his horse with the reins, and uttering weird cries which his charge apparently understood, for he put in all his knew, though, alas! he failed to "keep down," as they call it, and made a tangled break. Meantime Bob was going the shortest way home, sitting slightly forward, with his legs straight out in front of him like the rest.

A roar from the ring proclaimed the expected victory of yet another favourite. Min sank back in her seat, and her eyes shone with pride as she said:

"Bob just got there, miss; didn't he drive splendid?"

"Rather!" agreed Gay cordially. "But who's Bob?"

"Why, Bob's my man, Miss Gay, of course! Who else should he be?"

"Is he your husband?" Gay asked, laughing. "I knew you were married, dear Min, but I didn't know your husband's name. Do introduce me."

"Of course I will, miss, and feel honoured," Min replied proudly.

Soon after, she waved to her husband as he walked back along the course; he handed over his horse and sulky to a lad walking with him, and ducking under the rails, made his way to his wife, Min fairly beamed with pride as she said:

"Well done, Bob! What was the time?"

Bob gave it, hugely gratified, though glancing curiously at Gay, as she sat smiling bewitchingly down on him.

"This is me husband, miss," Min said affectionately. "Mr. Bob Toplady, Miss Lawless."

Gay held out her hand to the big, jolly man.

"How do you do?" she said. "I am so pleased you won that heat, and I'm so glad, too, to see dear Min again."

"Thank you, miss," said Bob, rapidly recovering his equanimity under Gay's unaffected enthusiasm. "I thought I was caught just close home, but when I saw the other break, I knew it was all my own. Not that his breaking was enough to disqualify him, you know, miss," he explained; "he didn't do enough for that, but because I've raced with that horse before, and I knew he was a bad breaker."

Gay listened with all her ears, though Bob's arguments did not seem conclusive. Still, she thought, there's plenty of time to learn, and she would remember that, and ask Carlton Mackrell.

"How interesting!" she said. "Did you win a lot of money?"

Min laughed.

"Not a lot to you, Miss Gay," she said, "but enough to buy me a new hat, and a bit over. It's only a heat, you understand, miss," she went on to explain, "and worth five pounds to the winner. But the final is forty pounds, and I think we shall just about win to-day, shan't we, Bob?"

"I hope so, my dear," he replied, "but the pacer that took the first heat is a bit useful, and I know they're backing him outright. A hobbled pacer has a great advantage over a trotter, especially on this uneven track."

"I must really be off now," announced Gay, turning to embrace Min once more. "I'll certainly come and see you, and your husband must tell me some more about trotting. I have a great mind to buy some horses myself, and run them—though I suppose they wouldn't let me drive, would they?" disappointedly.

"Lor, Miss Gay, what a sportsman you are!" exclaimed Mrs. Toplady. "Good-bye, and be sure to let me know when I can have my little bit on yours."

"My horses will invariably be 'out,'" Gay answered, with a mischievous attempt at dignity. "As Mr. Hannen would say, they will always be 'at it.' Good-bye!"

Gay made her way to where Chris was leaning over the rails, and with sparkling eyes confided to him that she was greatly enjoying herself. When she added that she thought of going in for the game herself, Chris gave a long, reflective whistle.

"I expected it," was all he said. Perhaps his thoughts flashed to Carlton Mackrell, and of how much more Gay would be thrown into his society for the future, and he remained silent till they regained the members' enclosure.

"What will your brother say?" he asked.

"Frank? Oh, he won't be consulted! I don't suppose he'd mind, though, so long as I am about the place to look after him. And he does want such a lot of looking after too, Chris; you've no idea, he's just like a child, and simply lost away from his books and specimens. Oh! those dreadful specimens"—she shuddered—"he will show them to me, and he leaves them about in the most impossible places, and I do get such shocks sometimes!"

"He's a clear old chap," said Chris, "and not so very old after all, is he? He can't be, taking a line through you, you know," lapsing into racing metaphor.

"He's years older than his real age, if you can understand what I mean," Gay laughed, "and I'm no chicken, you know, Chris—twenty-two next birthday!"

"You'll never grow old," he replied. "I've known you some years now, and you haven't changed a bit."

"Not for the better, anyhow, so Frank says," the girl answered.

"Frank's no judge," said Chris sharply, with more feeling in his voice than he usually showed, but Gay didn't seem to notice.

"Here comes Mr. Mackrell," she said, as a sulky swept past, going round the track for a warm up, before the second bell rang for the drivers to get on their marks.

Chris looked on without any interest.

"Take 'em out of those beetle-traps, and put a few fences across the course, then you might see something worth looking at," was his private opinion of trotting, yet the pacer's speed is founded on the camel's, and weedy and lanky as he is, no one who has seen either a trotter or a pacer fully extended in a race, especially if he has watched it coming straight at him, will deny that he is hardly less beautiful when in motion, than miserable-looking when he stands inactive.

A few minutes later, the second bell rang, and the drivers proceeded to their respective marks, some in receipt of a start, others giving one. Carlton Mackrell was on the back mark; the horse he was driving was amongst the fastest milers in England, and his form was fully exposed, with the result that he never improved appreciably on his handicap, as he was always trying, and frequently too close to the winner (often thrown in on previous "judicious form") to be re-handicapped.

The aim of all the drivers was to poach a start, and they turned, and came up to their marks with the pace up, so that at the sound of the "off" bell their horses were in their stride. The flag-man opposite each, raised his flag the moment the horse he was watching was on his mark, and lowered it when he had overstepped it.

After five or six attempts, "Uncle," the starter, with his finger on the trigger of his revolver, saw that all the flags were raised at the same time, and in a second, bang! and they were off. Gay's eyes were fixed on Carlton Mackrell.

"He's well away," she announced eagerly.

There were few better hands at getting off smartly than Mackrell, and he was always fairly going as he reached his distance, timing to a nicety the manœuvrings of his rivals in front.

"That's the one advantage of being 'scratch,'" he always said, "you can see what the others are doing."

In the first round he caught four of the leaders, though one, a hobbled pacer under saddle, ridden by a small boy, with a start of fifty yards, was apparently keeping it. Going round the back stretch the second time, Carlton Mackrell set his horse going, and began to go after the leader. Approaching the straight, shouts of "Billy Q." and "Sam Sly" rent the air, while the two horses were home-locked together.

Those who knew Carlton Mackrell's style of driving, however, and how he liked to come with a rush on the post, slipped down off the stand and backed him. Twenty yards from the post—too late, it appeared to Gay, who was exhorting him under her breath to "go on"—he made his effort. It was all over in a few strides, and Billy Q. had won.

Gay walked to the gate of the enclosure, followed by Chris, and waited while Carlton Mackrell got down. In a few minutes the flag was hung out of the judge's box and the "all right" shouted to the ring. Emerging from the stable, he handed his rugged-up winner to an attendant, and slipping on his overcoat, he walked along the track, his eyes on the ground, thinking, not of his recent triumph, but of Gay Lawless. By nature a most undemonstrative man, he rarely showed visibly any emotion, either on the course or in private, but his colour rose as he thought what a good sort Gay was, what a pal she'd make to the right man. But who was the right man? Had he arrived yet, and if so, was he personified in Chris Hannen, or had he, Carlton Mackrell, any chance? He started, as close at hand Gay's soft, clear voice exclaimed:

"Well done again, Mr. Mackrell! You drew it rather fine, though, didn't you? I thought you wouldn't quite get there, and I was so excited."

Carlton stopped, his features breaking into one of those rare smiles that transformed his dark, handsome face.

"I always like to make a race of it, you know," he replied. "You see, I know my horses so well; nobody drives them but me, even in their work, and my wrist-watch"—he held his arm up—"tells me exactly how fast I am going, and if my horse keeps to his home time for the quarter and half miles, I know I shall be thereabouts at the finish."

Gay's eyes sparkled.

"I have enjoyed to-day so much," she said, "and I'm regularly bitten with trotting. It's much prettier to watch than racing—even over fences"—she glanced saucily at Chris—"and, Mr. Mackrell, I'll let you into a secret—I mean to buy some horses, and go in for the game! Will you help me choose them, or let me know when anything good comes into the market?"

Mackrell looked earnestly at the girl's eager face, then he glanced quickly at Chris. That gentleman's face expressed no opinion, presenting the stoic indifference that characterised equally his riding of a winner, or another disappointment.

"This is hardly a lady's game, you know," Mackrell protested, "and, fond as I am of it, I could not recommend you to take it up seriously. The surroundings are not quite of the same class as Ascot or Goodwood, you know, and you would be an isolated instance."

"Wear your plainest clothes, no ornaments, and bring no money with you," had been Carlton's significant instructions when Gay had expressed a wish to attend a trotting meeting—and who could possibly have expected that horses, everything, would appear to her under a rose-hued glamour that assuredly they did not possess? Gay did not notice the component elements of the crowd, as Chris did—the weather was dazzling, the sun cozened, illumined the scene, and with a lover on either side of her to make things pleasant, the novelty of everything intoxicated her. Trotting showed to her in most attractive guise, and very differently to how it did later.

"I don't care," she said wilfully, "I'm fond of it, and I mean to do it, so that's settled. If you give me the benefit of your experiences"—she turned to Carlton—"I shall be grateful, and I won't be more of a nuisance than I can help."

Carlton Mackrell bowed.

"You could never be a nuisance," he said gravely, "and my advice is always at your command."

Almost immediately after he left them, and full of her delightful project, escorted by Chris Hannen, Gay Lawless left the pretty little racecourse.